IH 


NOV  8  1911   *j 


BV  600  .L33  1911 

Lanier,  John  J.  1862-1942. 

The  church  universal 


The  Church  Universal 


Kinship  of  God  and  Man 

By  REV.    J.    J.   LANIER 

Vol.     I.    HARMONY  OF  SOME  REVELATIONS  IN 
NATURE  AND  IN  GRACE 

($i.SO  postpaid) 

Vol.  II.    GOOD  AND  EVIL 

($i.SO  postpaid) 

Vol.111.    SALVATION   OF   MAN 

(^^1.50  postpaid) 

Uniform  cloth  binding;    each  volume  complete  in  itself. 
The  set,  ^3.50  postpaid. 

THE  CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

(^1.50  net) 


*      NOV  8  19i: 


A-^      • — rr**r 


The  Church  Universal 


A   RESTATEMENT   OF   CHRISTIANITY 
IN   TERMS    OF    MODERN    THOUGHT 


BY 
REV.   J.   J.   LANIER,   B.D. 

AUTHOR    OF    *' KINSHIP    OF    GOD    AND    MAN 


The  Reinicker  Lectures 

Delivered  at  the  Virginia  Theological  Seminary 

November  the  7th,  8th,  and  9th,  19 10 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
191 1 

^//  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  191 1 

By  Rev.  J.  J.  Lanier 

All  Rights  Reserved,  including  that  of  Translation 

into  Foreign  Languages 


CONTENTS 

PART  I  — THE  CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I.    The  Church  Universal 3 

II.    Religion  and  Theology 12 

III.  Christian  Unity 28 

PART  II  — THE  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE 
CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

IV.  Threefold  Sacrament  of  Eternal  Life         .        .      41 
V.    The  Sacramental  System  of  the  Christian  Church      51 

VI.    Baptism  a  Spiritual  Birth 65 

VII.    Baptism,  Symbol  of  Baptism,  and  Sacrament  of 

Baptism 87 

VIII.    Difference  between  John's  Baptism  and  Chris- 
tian Baptism 94 

IX.    Baptism  of  Spirit,  Water,  and  Blood  Universal  109 

X.    Baptism  and  Sexless  Birth 124 

PART  III  — LECTURES  ON  THE  CATECHISM 
XI.    The  Sacrament  of  Confirmation     .        .        .        .145 
XII.    The  Christian  Church 153 

XIII.  Essentials  of  Membership  in  the  Christian  Church    166 

XIV.  Come  to  Years  of  Discretion 175 

XV.    To  do  my  Duty  in  that  State  in  which  it  shall 

please  God  to  call  Me 187 

XVI.    What  we  renounce  in  Confirmation     .        .        .198 
XVII.    Source  of  Authority  in  Religion  .        .        .        .211 

XVIII.    Communion  of  Saints 227 

XIX.    What  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  to 
contribute   to   the  making    of   the   Church 

Universal 247 

XX.    Confirmation  a  Sacrament 257 

V 


NOTE 

The  Second  Series  of  the  Reinicker  Lectures,  de- 
livered at  the  Virginia  Theological  Seminary  Novem- 
ber the  7th,  8th,  and  9th,  1910,  consisted  of  three 
lectures  —  "Trinity  in  Unity,"  "The  Sacramental 
System  of  the  Christian  Church,"  and  "  Virgin  Birth 
and  Baptism."  The  first  lecture  is  not  in  this  volume, 
as  it  is  in  Volume  I,  "Kinship  of  God  and  Man." 
The  other  two  lectures  in  expanded  form  are  found 
in  this  volume.  The  lecture  on  "Communion  with 
God  "  is  in  Volume  I,  "  Kinship  of  God  and  Man." 

In  conclusion  I  wish  that  I  could  find  fitting  words 
with  which  to  adequately  express  my  sincere  appre- 
ciation of  the  kindness  of  those  who  have  read  this 
book  in  manuscript  and  in  proof,  and  especially  Rev. 
G.  Frederick  Wright,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  the  editor  -of 
Bibliotheca  Sacra,  and  Bishop  Nelson  of  the  Diocese 
of  Atlanta,  and  the  Bishop  of  Fond  du  Lac  who  has 

written  the  Introduction. 

J.  J.  LANIER. 

5901  Stone  Ave.,  Birmingham,  Ala., 
April  the  13th,  1911. 


VI 


Theological  Seminary,  Alexandria,  Va. 

December  i8th,  1910. 
My  dear  Mr.  Lanier  : 

It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  send  you  the  enclosed 
testimonial  of  the  Faculty  of  our  Seminary. 

Sincerely, 

A.  Crawford,  Dean, 

Theological  Seminary,  Alexandria,  Va. 

December  17th,  19 10. 
To  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Lanier, 

Birmingham,  Ala. : 

The  Faculty  of  the  Theological  Seminary  of  Vir- 
ginia desire  to  express  their  high  appreciation  of  the 
course  of  Reinicker  Lectures  delivered  by  you  last 
Fall. 

It  was  unique  in  the  attendance  of  the  whole  stu- 
dent body,  and  still  more  in  the  number  of  ladies 
present  through  the  course,  though  the  lectures  dealt 
with  purely  theological  doctrines,  such  as  "  The  Holy 
Trinity,"  "  The  Virgin  Birth,"  and  "  The  Sacramental 
System." 

Whatever  you  handled  you  illuminated.  The  secret 
of  it  all  is  in  your  clear  faith  in  the  great  doctrines 
of  the  Gospel,  and  your  gift  of  vivid  illustration  by 
means  of  simple  but  apt  analogies. 

We  heartily  add  our  testimony  to  the  many  enthu- 
siastic testimonials  your  friends  have  sent  you. 

R.  W.  Micou, 
Berryman  Green, 

Committee  of  the  Faculty. 


vu 


BlBLIOTHECA   SaCRA   COMPANY, 

Publishers 
Editor, 

G.  Frederick  Wright, 
Oberlin,  Ohio. 

Oberlin,  Ohio,  April  20,  191 1. 
Rev.  /.  /.  Lanier, 

Birmingham,  Alabama. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  am  very  much  obhged  to  you  for  the  privilege  of 
reading  in  proof  your  lectures  on  The  Church  Uni- 
versal. They  are  very  readable  as  well  as  instructive, 
and  will  serve  to  remove  much  misconception  regarding 
the  cathoHcity  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 
The  distinction  which  you  make  between  ^' baptism '* 
and  ''the  sacrament  of  baptism"  is  very  effective. 
I  doubt,  however,  if  you  have  made  it  as  clear  as  it 
should  be  that  the  acceptance  of  the  Apostolic  and 
Nicene  creeds  involves  a  belief  in  the  statements  of 
the  Bible  which  is  inconsistent  with  much  of  the 
current  criticism.  One  of  my  old-time  friends  re- 
proached me  recently  for  publishing  a  favorable 
notice  of  Chancellor  Lias's  work  on  the  Nicene  Creed, 
which  (the  Creed)  he  characterized  as  useless  on 
account  of  its  ''crude  metaphysics."  In  your  Church 
you  have  a  great  advantage  in  the  conservative  in- 
fluence of  your  Liturgy.  But  we  Congregationalists 
have  been  compelled  from  time  to  time  to  formulate 
special  creeds  to  shut  out  fatal  errors  from  sapping  the 
foundations  of  the  whole  Christian  system,  and  rob- 
bing it  of  its  power.  I  wish  a  wide  circulation  for 
your  admirable  volume  in  defense  of  fundamental 
truth.  Very  truly  yours, 

G.  Frederick  Wright. 

ix 


Diocese  of  Atlanta, 

Rt.  Rev.  C.  K.  Nelson,  D.D., 

S.  Philip's  Tower. 

Feb.  i6,  191 1. 
My  dear  Lanier: 

The  effect  and  force  of  your  illustrations  stick  and 
cannot  be  forgotten.  Your  treatment  of  Holy  Bap- 
tism is  particularly  strong  —  it  is  unanswerable  by 
Baptist  or  Roman  CathoHc;  it  states  the  facts,  the 
universal  facts,  so  "that  a  wayfaring  man  though  a 
fool  may  not  err." 

You  present  the  human  side  of  Confirmation  —  the 
vows  and  promises  —  finely  and  in  a  winning  way. 

I  regard  the  lectures  as  a  distinct  contribution  to 

popular  theology  of  the  right  sort,  as  well  as  a  devout 

and  intelligent  acceptance  of  the  Truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus. 

Wishing  your  book  a  wide  sale  and  distribution  that 

a  long-felt  need  may  be  suppHed, 

I  am,  as  ever,  with  high  appreciation, 

Yours  sincerely, 
C.  K.  Nelson, 
Bishop  of  Atlanta, 


XI 


INTRODUCTION 


It  is  with  much  diffidence  that  the  writer  of  this  In- 
troduction undertakes  the  duty  laid  upon  him,  both  on 
account  of  the  responsibiUty  of  indorsing  the  work,  and 
his  felt  inefficiency  in  deaUng  with  a  production  so 
noble  in  its  ideals  and  so  novel  in  its  treatment  of 
them. 

For  a  long  time  there  has  been  a  feeling  amongst 
theological  scholars  that  a  new  setting  more  in  accord- 
ance with  modern  philosophy  and  its  methods  of 
thought  should  be  given  to  Catholic  theology.  St. 
Thomas  will  always  be  regarded  as  the  culmination  of 
scholastic  and  mediaeval  science  as  based  upon  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy.  The  greatness  of  his  work 
cannot  be  overestimated.  But  the  scientific  discov- 
eries of  the  last  century  have  so  altered  our  common 
methods  of  thought  as  to  require  a  new  apologetic. 
We  have  here  in  this  work  an  effort  to  meet  this  want. 
Doubtless  there  may  be  expressions  found  which 
would  not  at  once  commend  themselves  to  the  ordinary 
theological  student;  nevertheless  they  may  be  worthy 
of  his  prayerful  consideration. 

Religion  and  theology  belong  to  different  categories. 
The  Church's  rehgion  is  one  based  upon  unalterable 
facts  which  are  summed  up  in  the  Apostles'  Creed. 
Theology  is  a  science  which  philosophically  deals  with 


XIU 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

the  relation  of  these  facts  to  each  other  and  to  man. 
As  a  science,  it  has  both  its  conservative  element  and 
its  progressive  one.  We  would  ask  that  this  book 
might  be  approached  in  a  conservative  and  humble 
spirit,  that  seeks  the  illumination  of  divine  wisdom. 
We  can  all  gratefully  acknowledge  the  noble  imder- 
lying  purpose  that  animates  this  work. 

It  seems  to  the  writer  of  the  Introduction  to  contain 
some  truths  most  important  for  our  time.  We  have 
here  set  forth  the  great,  grand  fact  of  God's  immanence 
in  nature.  He  is  not  a  great  Being  throned  on  some 
distant  star,  looking  down  upon  a  Creation  He  once 
made.  The  natural  world  is  a  revelation  of  His  own 
Being,  His  Wisdom,  His  Beauty,  His  Love.  Nature 
is  the  "  Velamen  Domini "  of  the  Blessed  Being.  He  is 
the  ever  near  and  ever  present  One.  He  is  every- 
where and  in  everything.  He  notices  the  sparrow's 
fall,  the  growth  of  every  blade  of  grass,  the  tear  of 
every  child,  the  cry  of  every  one  of  His  children. 

Again,  the  great,  grand,  majestic  fact  of  the  Incarna- 
tion is  here,  in  this  book,  seen  to  be  a  primary  thought 
of  God.  It  was  not  an  afterthought  occasioned  by 
man's  sin.  Ever,  from  all  Eternity,  God  designed  a 
creation  which  should  culminate  in  an  Incarnation  of 
Himself.  Man's  triple  nature  as  a  microcosm  formed 
a  fitting  point  of  this  union  between  the  Creator  and 
the  Created.  The  smalhiess  of  the  planet  formed  no 
obstacle  to  His  design.  As  God  was  to  enter  creation 
for  the  whole  of  it,  He  must  come  at  some  one  point, 
and  the  loving  hiddenness  of  God  chose  our  earth  as 
His  marriage  chamber.  The  writer  ventures  to  sug- 
gest the  work  of  Professor  Wallace,  ''Man's  Place  in 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

the  Universe/'  ^  as  worthy  of  consideration  on  this 
subject.  True  indeed,  man  had  sinned  and  needed 
redemption.  God's  greatest,  grandest  work  was  not 
dependent  on  the  fall  of  His  creatures.  But  The 
Eternal  did  not  let  the  sin  of  His  child  bafHe  His  pri- 
mary design.  The  many  milHons  of  suns  surrounding 
the  earth,  and  the  many  millions  and  millions  of  years 
in  preparation  were  to  give  dignity  to  His  entrance. 
He  came  in  the  fulness  of  time  that  He  might  gather 
together  in  one  all  things  which  are  in  Heaven  and  in 
earth. 

Again,  too,  the  Author  brings  out  the  Gospel  dis- 
tinction between  the  Everlasting  or  immortal,  and  the 
Eternal  Life.  If  the  immanence  of  God  in  nature  has 
been  to  many  like  a  revelation  of  a  new  truth,  so  the 
writer  humbly  suggests  that  the  recovery  of  the  full 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  may  be.  The  Incarnate 
Lord,  by  joining  human  beings  to  Himself,  is  forming 
a  new  creation,  and  joined  together  in  Him  they  form 
a  mystical  body,  its  vast  spiritual  organism,  or  living 
Temple.  Christ,  Who  did  not  leave  His  Church  by 
the  Ascension,  abides  within  it.  The  truth  we  want 
to  emphasize  is  this,  that  what  Almighty  God  is  to  the 
natural  material  world,  this  God  Man  is  to  the  spiritual 
world.  As  God  is  immanent  in  nature,  so  the  God 
Man  is  present,  the  permanent  Source  of  grace  and 
light  and  truth  to  the  Church.  Let  this  truth  be 
realized  by  all  kinds  of  Churchmen,  and  differences  will 
disappear,  and  the  Church  combine  in  love  and  union. 

Man  is  immortal  by  virtue  of  His  own  spiritual 
nature,  but  Eternal  Life  is  the  gift  that  comes  to  us 

^Pub.  McClure,  Philips  and  Co. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

through  the  Incarnate  Lord.  It  signifies  a  new  ele- 
vation of  being,  union  of  God  Himself  in  Christ.  We 
are  united  to  God  in  three  ways:  (i)  By  power.  *'In 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  (2).  By 
grace.  We  are  united  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and  Sacra- 
mental grace  to  the  Humanity  of  Christ.  *'As  in 
Adam  we  all  die,"  i.e.,  by  an  actual  contact  of  natures, 
even  so,  In  Christ  we  shall  be  made  alive.  (3).  As 
Christ's  humanity  possessed,  by  His  union  with  the 
Divine  nature,  the  Beatific  Vision,  so  we  in  Him,  per- 
haps in  a  progressive  way,  attain  to  it.  This  union 
is  called  the  union  of  glory.  In  its  completed  state,  it 
secures  us  in  a  state  of  sinlessness,  and  consequently 
Eternal  blessedness  and  joy. 

It  is  thus  a  tremendous  question  for  every  child 
of  man  to  answer,  ''Shall  he  attain  to  it,  or  reject 
it?" 

This  book  also  brings  out  in  a  singularly  fresh  and 
vivid  way  the  great  law  of  Virgin  Birth.  The  reply  to 
the  unbeliever  that  the  Virgin  Birth  is  a  violation  of  the 
common  law  of  nature  is,  that  in  respect  to  our  Blessed 
Lord's  Conception,  it  is  not  so.  For  the  natural  order, 
as  we  know  it,  only  relates  to  the  reproduction  and 
extension  of  our  own  species.  Now  our  Lord,  accord- 
ing to  His  own  declaration,  was  a  preexisting  Being. 
He  said,  '' Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  The  manner 
in  which  a  preexisting  person  would  take  upon  him 
our  nature  necessarily  differs  from  that  of  a  non-pre- 
existing being.  His  coming  therefore  from  one  parent 
does  not  violate  the  ordinary  law  of  human  production. 
Moreover,  and  this  our  writer  brings  out  very  forcibly, 
there  are  two  laws  to  be  considered  in  the  production 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

of  human  beings:  the  law  of  sexual  reproduction  of 
beings  of  the  same  kind,  and  the  law  of  the  Virgin 
Birth,  or  the  introduction  of  a  higher  life  into  a  lower. 
The  former  denotes  a  progressive  evolution  under 
God's  cooperation,  and  the  latter  denotes  the  unfolding 
of  the  Divine  plan  by  a  new  activity  and  gift.  The 
Virgin  Birth  therefore  as  standing  at  the  head  of  the 
new  creative  movement  is  not  contrary  to,  but  in  ac- 
cordance with,  general  law. 

In  this  work  we  shall  find  also  a  most  valuable  argu- 
ment in  respect  to  the  Sacraments.  If  our  nature  is 
to  be  united  to  the  humanity  of  Christ,  sacraments  are 
an  obvious  necessity.  God,  Who  has  made  us  with 
body  and  soul,  gives  spiritual  gifts  through  human  and 
material  instrumentalities.  This  is  the  great  law  that 
runs  throughout  the  natural  world.  The  gift  of  being 
with  immortal  life  comes  through  the  agency  of  human 
parentage.  The  sustenation  of  natural  life  depends 
on  the  natural  sacraments  of  food  and  environment  of 
air  and  light.  Sound  is  made  the  instrument  of  com- 
munication of  thought,  and  by  it  the  spirit  of  man 
passes  into  the  spirit  of  man.  Thus  in  the  Christian 
Dispensation  grace  is  given  to  us  through  sacramental 
agencies.  Our  author  brings  this  out  by  a  striking 
analogy  of  our  natural  birth  by  water,  blood,  and  spirit, 
and  these  three  elements  in  our  new  spiritual  birth  in 
baptism.  The  water  stands  for  nature,  blood  for 
humanity,  which  may  cover  both  the  Church  and 
Christ,  and  the  Spirit  or  Holy  Ghost.  The  whole  sec- 
tion is  worthy  of  serious  thought.  Moreover,  we  have 
here  the  great  law  of  Christian  unity.  It  is  the  grace 
that  communicates  to  us  the  nature  of  Christ,  that 


xviu  INTRODUCTION 

unites  Christians  into  an  indissoluble  family.  We  are 
thus  one,  as  the  Father  and  Son  are  one.  The  family 
has,  however,  become  outwardly  divided.  The  great 
problem  before  all  Christians  is,  "How  can  it  be  a  re- 
united family?"  Our  Lord  prayed  that  it  not  only 
should  be  one,  but  be  so  united  outwardly  as  to  bear 
witness  to  His,  and  the  Church's,  divine  mission.  This 
supernatural  effect  can  only  be  brought  about  by  su- 
pernatural means.  An  enforced  union,  under  an  ab- 
solute monarchy  as  proposed  by  Rome,  is  of  the  earth, 
earthy.  It  bears  no  witness  to  a  divine  mission.  The 
Church,  one  by  sacramental  grace,  was  to  be  one  out- 
wardly by  Divine  charity.  It  was  the  spirit  of  sub- 
mission of  local  and  national  churches  to  the  whole  or 
universal  body  that  was  to  bear  witness  to  its  super- 
natural origin  and  mission. 

We,  who  are  churchmen,  are  realizing  more  and  more 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  given  the  Church  at  Pente- 
cost. It  was  not  a  temporary  gift,  but  He  came  from 
Christ  into  His  body  the  Church  to  enlighten,  guide, 
and  sanctify  it.  Pentecost  was  the  birthday  of  the 
Church.  It  can  no  more  be  repeated  than  can  Christ- 
mas Day.  The  Church,  by  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  became  a  spiritual  organism,  having  thus  life 
in  itself  and  capable  of  commimicating  and  preserv- 
ing Kfe.  These  are  some  of  the  grand  truths  which  are 
to  be  found  in  this  work. 

Not  only  will  they  help  us  to  meet  the  needs  of  our 
time,  but  will  draw  the  different  schools,  the  Evangeli- 
cal, the  Catholic,  and  the  Broad,  more  closely  together. 
Oh !  It  is  this  that  we  so  much  need.  We  need  espe- 
cially the  increase  of  Divine  charity,  which  will  lead  us 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

to  love  and  trust  one  another.  Has  not  the  time  come 
for  past  warfare  to  cease  ?  All  the  three  schools,  the 
high,  the  low,  and  the  broad,  stand  for  separate  but 
true  ideals.  The  evangelical  dwells  upon  the  subjec- 
tive side  of  religion  and  the  need  of  vital  piety,  and  de- 
pendence from  first  to  last  on  the  merits  of  Christ. 
The  high  Churchman  dwells  on  the  objective  side  of 
religion  as  embodied  in  the  Church,  the  ministry,  and 
the  Sacraments.  The  broad  churchman  seeks  for 
reconciliation  between  reason  and  tradition.  They 
are  thus  all  good  in  their  respective  ways.  Each  has, 
however,  the  danger  of  its  own  extreme.  The  subjec- 
tive, apart  from  the  objective,  would  lead  to  Quaker- 
ism; the  objective  apart  from  the  subjective,  would 
lead  to  formalism  or  Romanism;  Rationalism,  apart 
from  authority,  ends  in  Unitarianism.  We  need, 
avoiding  extremes,  to  come  together  to  learn  from  one 
another,  to  come  closer  to  Christ,  and  be  more  filled 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  lay  aside  all  suspicion  and  dis- 
trust, to  act  together  in  the  spirit  of  divine  love.  We 
pray  that  this  book  may  aid  in  this  blessed  consumma- 
tion, for  if  our  dear  and  beloved  Church  would  only 
become  imited  in  heart  and  soul,  what  great  things 
could  not  be  done  through  it  for  the  extension  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ. 

We  ask  for  this  book,  dear  Reader,  your  sympathy, 
your  cooperation,  and  your  prayers. 

►i<  C.  C.  Fond  du  Lac. 


PART   I 
THE   CHURCH    UNIVERSAL 


THE  CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

The  word  " catholic''  reminds  me  of  an  examination 
held  by  a  Coimty  School  Commissioner  in  Southwest 
Georgia.  One  question  was,  Why  is  Geography  a 
catholic  study  ?  All  these  candidates  seeking  to  teach 
the  youth  of  Georgia  failed  most  ludicrously  to  answer 
this  question  correctly,  except  one  who  said  that 
Geography  is  a  catholic  study  because  everybody 
studies  it,  that  is,  it  is  not  like  music  a  special  study 
but  is  a  universal  study. 

No  attentive  stranger  attending  the  service  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  can  fail  to  understand 
what  the  word  catholic  means,  for  every  time  we  repeat 
the  Creed  we  not  only  say  that  we  believe  in  the  Uni- 
versal Church  but  pray  for  it  in  these  words :  ''More 
especially  we  pray  for  Thy  Holy  Church  Universal,  that 
it  may  be  so  guided  and  governed  by  Thy  good  Spirit, 
that  all  who  profess  and  call  themselves  Christians 
may  be  led  into  the  way  of  truth,  and  hold  the  faith  in 
unity  of  spirit,  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and  in  righteous- 
ness of  life."  In  order  to  prevent  any  possible  mis- 
imderstanding  of  what  we  mean  when  we  say  in  the 
Creed,  "I  beheve  in  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,"  we 
will  begin  with  the  definition  of  the  Catholic  Church 
and  the  Catholic  Christian. 


4  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

The  Church  of  Holy  Scripture  and  ancient  authors 
is  the  entire  body  of  the  baptized  faithful.  It  is  a 
house  to  which  every  Christian  carries  the  key,  whether 
he  be  Pope  or  layman,  Archbishop  or  street  corner 
Evangelist.  No  intelligent,  spiritual,  or  godly  minded 
person  pretends  that  his  own  denomination,  be  it 
Episcopal  or  Independent,  comprises  the  whole  Church 
of  God.  Every  Christian  on  earth  and  in  Paradise 
is  an  essential  part  of  the  Church  Universal. 

What  then  are  all  our  denominations  ?  No  one  is 
the  Church  Universal.  What  are  they  then?  They 
are  religious  societies  within  the  one  Universal  Church 
of  God,  each  giving  to  the  Church  that  particular  ser- 
vice which  in  the  Providence  of  God  it  has  been  called 
upon  to  render.  When  we  say  in  the  Creed  that  we 
believe  in  the  ''Holy  CathoHc  Church,"  we  recognize 
that  the  Church  of  God  is  larger  than  any  sect.  A 
sectarian  is  one  who  limits  the  Church  of  God  to  his 
own  sect.  The  catholic  Christian  is  too  large  minded 
for  this.  He  knows  that  there  are  Christians  in  all 
"the  societies  "  in  one  Church  of  God ;  for  that  which 
makes  one  a  Christian  in  one  society  in  the  Church 
makes  him  a  Christian  in  all  —  either  a  narrow  sec- 
tarian Christian  or  a  broad-minded  cathoHc  Christian 
—  for  there  is  only  one  way  of  making  a  man  a  Chris- 
tian, which  is  by  ''a  death  unto  sin  and  a  new  birth 
unto  righteousness."  One  can  be  a  Christian  without 
being  a  Baptist,  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  Episco- 
palian, or  Romanist,  as  these  words  are  defined  to-day. 
What  would  you  call  such  a  Christian  ?  He  is  a  cath- 
olic Christian  and  wants  his  society  in  the  Church  of 
God  to  be  as  large  as  Christ  so  that  all  humanity 


THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL  5 

can  be  gathered  into  the  one  fold  of  Christ,  called 
His  Church. 

This  is  what  the  Church  Universal  means.  But 
alas  !  at  the  present  time  it  is  only  an  ideal  in  the  mind 
of  Christ,  and  in  spiritual  minded  souls  here  and  there 
who  have  outgrown  sectarianism.  The  reality  we 
have  is  as  follows:  "There  is  an  infinite  variety  of 
religions  in  the  United  States.  There  are  churches 
small  and  great,  churches  high  and  churches  low, 
orthodox  and  heterodox,  Romanist  and  Protestant, 
liberal  and  conservative,  Calvinistic  and  Arminian, 
native  and  foreign,  Trinitarian  and  Unitarian.  All 
phases  of  thought  are  represented  by  them,  all  possible 
theologies,  polity,  ritual,  usage,  and  worship.  One 
may  be  a  Pagan,  Jew,  or  Christian,  or  each  in  turn. 
If  a  Christian,  he  may  select  one  of  the  125  or  130  kinds, 
or  join  every  one  of  them  in  turn.  If  none  of  these 
suit  us,  each  one  can  constitute  himself  into  a  church 
all  by  himself," 

I  cannot  get  any  comfort  out  of  this  strange  state 
of  affairs  however  much  others  may  praise  it.  It 
makes  me  sick  at  heart  and  faint  in  soul !  It  made 
the  late  lamented  Henry  Drummond  say:  ''What 
is  religion  ?  What  am  I  to  believe  ?  What  seek 
with  all  my  heart,  mind,  and  soul  ?  Every  day  a  new 
authority  announces  himself.  Poets,  philosophers, 
and  preachers  try  their  hand  on  us  in  turn.  New 
prophets  arise  and  beseech  us  for  our  soul's  sake  to 
give  ear  to  them.  At  length  the  theories,  like  the 
beams  of  light  in  the  laboratory  experiment,  combine 
in  the  mind  to  make  total  darkness." 

This  is  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  having 


6  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

187  differing  sectarian  societies,  with  187  different 
creeds  and  methods  of  salvation,  each  setting  up  rival 
claims  to  be  exclusively  the  Church  of  God.  If  it 
were  possible  to  confuse  people  and  make  them  lose 
their  heads,  this  would  do  it.  No  greater  blessing 
could  be  bestowed  upon  this  land  than  for  aU  Chris- 
tian people  to  say  with  one  voice :  This  is  salvation  t 
Believe  this,  and  do  this,  and  you  will  he  saved  ! 

Sectarianism  has  been  caused,  to  a  large  extent, 
by  Christian  societies  making  non-essentials  conditions 
of  Church  membership.  What  I  can  believe  or  not 
believe,  what  I  can  do  or  leave  undone,  and  be  none 
the  better  or  worse  man  for  so  doing,  is  a  non-essen- 
tial of  membership  in  the  Church  of  God.  What  all 
men  must  do  and  believe  to  be  saved  from  a  sinful 
life  is  the  faith  of  the  Church  Universal. 

If  more  than  this  is  made  necessary  for  membership 
in  any  branch  of  the  Church  that  instant  it  becomes 
a  sectarian  society  in  the  Church  of  God,  for  it  has 
added  over  and  above  the  essentials  non-essentials, 
and  thereby  makes  it  necessary  for  a  man  to  believe 
certain  things  and  do  certain  things,  in  order  to  become 
a  member  of  that  society  of  Christians,  which  is  not 
necessary  to  make  a  man  a  Christian. 

In  the  past  all  of  us  lorded  it  over  God's  heritage, 
no  one  being  able  to  say:  "I  am  better  than  thou,'' 
"I  did  not  do  it."  None  of  us  to-day,  except  in  a  half- 
hearted way,  believe  in  our  past  ^' plans  of  salvation." 
This  shows  that  we  have  broken  the  anchors  which 
bind  us  to  the  sectarian  idea  of  the  Church  and  are 
fast  coming  to  the  idea  and  ideal  of  the  Church  Uni- 
versal.   We   must   constantly   remember   that   only 


THE  CHURCH  UNIVERSAL  7 

two  or  three  Christian  sects  originated  in  America. 
Most  of  them  had  their  origin  in  Europe,  and  as  their 
members  moved  to  America,  they  brought  their 
societies  with  them,  and  set  them  up  here.  The 
sectarian  Christianity  which  we  have  in  America  is 
largely  of  foreign  importation,  and  as  these  foreign 
populations  have  fused  and  amalgamated  into  one 
American  people  the  day  is  coming  when  the  foreign 
sectarian  Christianity  imported  from  Europe  will  be 
fused  into  the  Church  Universal,  so  that  a  minister 
in  one  congregation  is  a  minister  in  all,  and  a  member 
of  one  congregation  is  a  member  of  all. 

Fortunately  for  us  the  heat,  the  bitterness,  the 
strife,  and  the  controversies  growing  out  of  the  forma- 
tion of  sectarian  societies  we  know  nothing  about, 
save  as  we  read  them  upon  the  pages  of  history.  But 
in  the  days  of  their  origin  and  growth,  as  the  readers  of 
Church  history  know  only  too  sadly  and  too  well, 
the  air  was  filled  with  anathemas  of  excommunication 
hurled  against  each  and  every  one  not  of  his  sect  and 
party,  each  claiming  that  salvation  was  to  be  foimd 
only  within  his  walls.  There  is  only  a  small  per  cent 
of  the  membership  of  any  church  that  knows  much 
about  its  history,  but  those  who  have  taken  the  trouble 
to  read  know  that  in  the  "good  old  days  ''  there  were 
genuine,  giant,  and  uncompromising  sectarians.  The 
faith  of  the  Church  Universal  was  submerged  and  in 
danger  of  being  lost  beneath  the  surging  billows  of 
sectarian  Christianity.  But  to-day,  thank  God,  sec- 
tarianism is  dying. 

For  this  sufficient  reason,  every  sectarian  society 
knows  that  membership  in  his  particular  sect  is  not 


8  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

necessary  for  salvation.  When  one  reaches  this  con- 
clusion he  ceases  to  be  a  sectarian  and  becomes  a 
catholic  Christian.  Sectarianism  for  him  is  dead. 
Unless  I  am  very  much  mistaken  there  are  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  Christians  thinking  and  saying  this 
to-day.  They  have  ceased  to  care  and  bother  them- 
selves about  the  quarrels  of  sectarian  societies,  and 
their  conflicting  ''plans  of  salvation.''  But  they  care 
more  than  they  ever  did  for  the  essentials  of  genuine 
salvation,  the  Creed  which  enshrines  these  essentials, 
and  the  Church  which  is  to  be  the  embodiment  and 
living  organism  of  this  salvation  —  which  is  the 
Church  Universal,  the  body  of  Christ,  the  blessed  com- 
pany of  all  faithful  people,  the  temple  of  the  living 
God. 

Most  Christians  find  themselves  members  of  so- 
cieties which  have  confessed  that  they  have  conditions 
of  membership  which  are  not  essential  to  salvation. 
This  is  becoming  intolerable  and  unendurable  to  men 
and  women  who  are  seeking  the  reality  and  marrow 
of  things.  They  are  asking  the  question  more  ear- 
nestly every  day,  what  right  has  any  body  of  men  and 
women  to  form  themselves  into  a  society  which  they 
call  the  Church  of  God,  and  then  make  conditions  of 
entrance  into  their  society  which  they  themselves 
acknowledge  are  not  essential  for  salvation?  Must 
one  man  believe  and  do  one  thing  to  be  saved,  and 
another  man  do  another  thing,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum, 
until  there  is  a  particular  method  of  salvation  for 
every  individual  man  ?  When  the  thing  is  put  in  this 
way  you  see  the  absurdity  of  it. 

I  go  to  my  Baptist  brother  and  say,  "Do  you  believe 


THE    CHURCH  UNIVERSAL  9 

that  all  Methodists,  Presbyterians,  Episcopalians, 
and  Romanists  are  going  to  perdition  when  they  die  ? 
That  no  man  can  be  saved  unless  he  is  wet  all  over  with 
water?  "  He  will  at  once  say,  ''No  !  all  Christians 
are  saved  and  will  go  to  Heaven  when  they  die." 

I  ask  my  Methodist  brother  if  he  believes  that  only 
Methodists  are  going  to  be  saved.  He  says,  ''Oh  no, 
all  Christians  are  saved  and  will  go  to  Heaven  when 
they  die."  My  Presbyterian  brother  believes  the 
same  thing,  and  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to  beHeve 
that  the  Roman  priest  really  thinks  that  all  good 
people  are  going  to  perdition  when  they  die  because 
they  are  not  members  of  the  Roman  sect. 

Here  is  the  condition  of  sectarian  Christianity  in 
America  to-day.  We  all  admit  that  all  Christians 
are  good  enough  to  enter  Heaven,  but  are  not  good 
enough  to  become  members  of  petty  sectarian  societies 
until  we  behttle  our  souls  and  surrender  our  mental 
integrity  by  subscribing  to  condirions  of  sectarian 
Church  membership,  which  are  confessed  on  all  hands 
to  be  non-essentials  of  salvation,  which  a  man  can 
obey  or  not  obey  as  he  sees  fit,  and  still  get  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God  ! 

Once  people  believed,  and  honestly  believed,  that 
unless  a  man  was  immersed,  beHeved  the  Methodist 
Discipline,  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith, 
The  Thirty-nine  Articles,  or  that  the  Pope  was  the 
infallible  Vicar  of  Christ,  the  Supreme  Head  of  the 
Church  on  earth,  they  could  not  be  saved.  As  long 
as  people  believed  this  we  could  not  help  having  sec- 
tarian Christianity,  but  to-day  the  great  majority  of 
Christians  know  that  a  man  can  believe  all   these 


lo  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

non-essentials,  about  which  Christians  have  fought 
so  pugnaciously  and  so  long,  and  go  to  hell  and  be 
damned;  and  not  believe  one  of  them  and  go  to 
heaven  and  be  saved  ! 

In  the  by-gone  days  of  ignorance,  prejudice,  and 
bigotry,  all  sects  were  sincere  in  the  contention  that 
they  were  exclusively  the  Church  of  God,  but  to-day 
when  one  makes  such  a  claim,  he  comes  perilously 
near  being  a  hypocrite,  and  at  best  convinces  few  be- 
sides himself.  I  would  that  these  words  might  ring 
around  the  world  and  wake  the  sleeping  conscience 
of  every  Christian  —  let  us  make  the  conditions  of 
entrance  into  the  Christian  Church  what  a  man  must 
do  and  believe  to  be  a  Christian,  and  if  we  do  not  know 
what  this  is,  let  us  close  up  our  doors,  and  stop  trying 
to  deceive  ourselves  and  the  world  by  calling  our  ex- 
clusive holy  clubs  the  Church  of  Almighty  God ! 
For  he  who  in  this  year  of  grace  knowingly  and  will- 
ingly does  aught  to  keep  apart,  or  drive  further  apart, 
the  broken  fragments  of  the  Christian  Church,  is  an 
archtraitor  in  God's  House  and  commits  high  treason 
against  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  who  died  to 
save  us  all.  The  fulness  of  time  has  come  to  let  the 
dead  past  bury  its  now  discredited,  dishonored,  and 
unholy  dead.  For  the  causes  which  disrupted  the 
Church  of  God  four  hundred  years  ago  are  dead,  and 
why  not  bury  the  ghastly  corpse  out  of  sight  forever ! 
Why  not  have  the  Church  Universal  ? 

I  do  not  condemn  altogether  sectarianism  in  the 
past.  Good  as  well  as  evil  has  come  out  of  it,  for  I 
believe  that  each  and  every  one  of  the  larger  sects  has 
contributed   something   necessary  to   the  well-being 


THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL  n 

and  perfection  of  the  Church  Universal,  and  that  it  is 
by  the  union  and  contribution  of  them  all  that  the 
Church  Universal  will  be  made  in  America,  as  the 
union  of  the  Missouri,  Ohio,  Arkansas,  and  Red  make 
the  mighty  Mississippi. 

In  the  two  succeeding  chapters  I  shall  still  further 
analyze  some  of  the  factors  which  have  caused  sec- 
tarianism. 


n 

RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY 

What  the  world  wants  is  not  less  but  more  and  better  theology, 
as  it  wants  not  less  but  more  and  better  science.  No  man  objects 
to  theology,  but  to  what  he  thinks  is  superstition  and  falsehood,  in 
which  every  one  joins  him. 

One  of  the  most  instructive  books  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  read  in  early  years  was  James  Freeman 
Clarke's  "  Ten  Great  Religions."  The  title,  however, 
is  misleading;  for  there  are  not  ten  great  religions. 
There  are  no  doubt  ten  great  theologies,  but,  as  there 
is  only  one  God  there  can  be  only  one  religion,  which 
men  believe  to  the  extent  that  they  beheve  in  rehgion 
at  all ;  for  religion  is  the  same  the  round  world  over. 

If  men  agree  about  one  thing,  it  is  religion  which 
never  did  separate  one  man  from  another  man.  If 
therefore  you  find  something  pushing  you  and  your 
fellow-men  apart,  know  at  once  and  infallibly  that  it  is 
not  rehgion ;  for  religion  is  the  universal  bonds  of  kin- 
ship and  love  which  bind  us  together  and  us  to  God. 

But  if  religion  has  not  separated  mankind,  theology 
has;  and  it  is  only  in  the  great  transition  epochs  of 
the  world,  when  men  transcend  their  imperfect  the- 
ologies, that  religion  has  been  able  to  unite  mankind 
and  do  its  perfect  work.  The  present  time  seems  to 
be  one  of  the  rare  periods  of  the  world  in  which  real 
progress  can  be  made,  because  men  are  everywhere 

13 


RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY  13 

beginning  to  make  a  right  and  necessary  distinction 
between  religion  and  theology  and  the  facts  out  of  which 
they  grow. 

The  mission  of  Jesus  was  made  possible,  first  to  the 
Jew  and  then  to  the  Gentile,  by  His  transcending  their 
theologies  but  not  their  religion.  His  point  of  contact 
and  basis  of  agreement  with  both  Jew  and  Gentile 
was,  ''as  your  own  poets  have  said  we  are  the  off- 
spring of  God."  His  departure  was  in  living  a  life 
and  formulating  a  theology,  as  far  as  He  formulated 
one,  in  harmony  with  this  universal  truth. 

This  fundamental  distinction  between  religion  and 
theology,  and  the  facts  out  of  which  both  inevitably 
grow,  was  first  made  in  the  Christian  Church  by  the 
Apostle  Peter  in  these  words,  ''I  perceive  that  God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons ;  but  in  every  nation  he  that 
feareth  Him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable 
to  Him."     (Acts  10  :  34-35.) 

The  significance  and  force  of  these  words  grow  out 
of  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  uttered. 
They  were  Peter's  defence  for  admitting  the  Gentile 
convert,  Cornelius,  into  the  Christian  Church,  which 
brought  down  upon  the  head  of  the  Apostle  Peter,  who 
admitted  him,  a  storm  of  protest  from  the  Jewish 
members  of  the  Church,  although  it  was  in  direct  obe- 
dience to  the  explicit  command  of  Jesus,  *'Go  ye, 
therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost." 

Many  have  used  this  as  an  argument  against  the  gen- 
uineness of  the  baptismal  formula  in  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel, saying :  *' Surely  the  Jewish  disciples,  if  Jesus  had 


14  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

given  this  command,  would  have  raised  no  objection  to 
the  baptism  of  a  Gentile,  but  would  have  welcomed  it. 
Making  Gentiles  members  of  the  Christian  Church, 
under  such  strong  objection,  looks  very  much  like  an 
afterthought  on  the  part  of  Peter,  and|not  the  original 
idea  of  Jesus." 

This  contention  would  indeed  be  most  plausible  and 
convincing,  if  it  was  the  only  account  we  have  of  the 
disciples'  failure  to  understand,  and  obey,  the  com- 
mands of  Jesus.  It  does  not,  however,  stand  alone. 
It  has  been  reproduced  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  every  age.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is, 
that  only  under  the  initiative  and  guidance  of  in- 
spired leadership  does  the  Christian  Church  obey  the 
direct  and  explicit  commands  of  Jesus,  and  by  so  doing 
make  progress.  Jesus  knew  that  His  disciples  would 
not,  and,  in  many  instances,  on  account  of  their  igno- 
rance and  prejudice,  could  not  understand  His  com- 
mands. He  therefore  said:  "I  will  send  the  Holy 
Spirit  who  will  take  of  mine  and  show  it  unto  you." 

The  union  of  Jew  and  Gentile  in  social  and  religious 
intercourse  was  so  unusual,  the  possibiUty  of  it  in  their 
minds  so  remote,  and  the  objection  to  it  even  on  the 
part  of  St.  Peter,  the  most  opened-minded  of  them  all, 
so  strenuous,  that  it  required  a  special  revelation  to 
convince  him  that  Jesus  really  meant  the  Gentiles 
as  well  as  the  Jews  to  be  members  of  the  Christian 
Church.  (Acts  lo.)  And  had  it  not  been  for  the 
inspired  leadership  of  the  Apostle  Peter  in  this  crisis 
of  the  Church,  it  would,  as  far  as  we  can  now  see,  have 
remained  a  petty  sect  of  Nazarenes ;  but  his  Baptism 
of  this  Gentile  made  it  possible  for  this  sect  to  become 


RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY  15 

the  Universal  Church  of  mankind  under  the  leadership 
of  St.  Paul,  when  the  courage  of  Peter  failed  him  later 
on  imder  pressure  from  his  sectarian  Jewish  brethren. 
The  baptism  of  Cornelius  marked  the  advent  of  in- 
spired leadership,  and  that  order  of  thought  which 
makes  spiritual  geniuses.  For  before  this  time  the 
Apostles  and  their  followers  were  Jewish  sectarians, 
limiting  God's  acceptance  of  a  man  to  that  peculiar  and 
exclusive  type  of  theology  in  which  it  was  their  fortune 
to  be  educated ;  but  in  this  remarkable  revolution  of 
thought,  wrought  in  them  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  they 
passed  from  Jewish  sectarianism  into  the  one  eternal 
religion  of  mankind. 

DIFFERENCE   BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY 

Jesus  said:  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind.  This  is  the  first  commandment.  And  the 
second  is  like  unto  it,  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the 
law  and  the  prophets."  St.  John  says,  "We  know 
that  we  have  passed  from  death  to  Hfe  because  we  love 
the  brethren."  St.  James  says,  "Pure  religion  .  .  . 
is  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  afHiction, 
and  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world."  The 
essence  of  religion  as  defined  by  these  men  is  love  of 
God  and  man. 

We  now  wish  to  find  the  eternal  basis  of  love,  human 
and  divine.  Do  we  not  love  father,  mother,  sister, 
and  brother  better  than  all  others?  And  is  not  the 
fact  of  kinship  the  basis  of  human  love  ?    Divine  love  is 


i6  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

also  based  upon  the  fact  of  kinship,  which  Jesus  stated 
when  he  said,  "Call  no  man  your  father  upon  the 
earth,  for  one  is. your  Father  which  is  in  heaven.'* 

Christians  therefore  begin  their  Creed  by  saying, 
"I  believe  in  God  the  Father,"  which  is  a  statement  of 
the  kinship  of  God  and  man,  and  complete  it  by  telling 
who  God  is  —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit ;  and  still 
further  expand  it  by  stating  what  God  does  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  The  creed  of  Christendom  there- 
fore is  nothing  more  than  a  statement  of  the /ad  of  the 
kinship  of  God  and  man,  upon  which  rehgion  is  based, 
and  out  of  which  it  grows. 

The  explanation,  or,  if  you  prefer,  the  attempted 
explanation,  of  these /ac/5  is  theology.  These  facts  are 
contained  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  as  we  understand 
the  significance  of  these  facts  better  and  better,  and 
restate  their  relation  in  terms  of  new  knowledge 
gathered  from  age  to  age,  theology  is  constantly  chang- 
ing. In  other  words  theology  is  a  science  based  upon 
facts  as  all  sciences  are ;  and,  like  all  sciences,  it  is 
constantly  progressing;  and  because  it  is  progressing  it 
is  changing. 

For  instance  let  us  take  this  initial  fact  and  state- 
ment of  the  Creed  out  of  which  all  religion  grows,  ''I 
believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  maker  of  Heaven 
and  earth."  All  the  science,  philosophy,  and  theology 
man  will  ever  know  cannot  change  this  fact  one  iota. 

But  if  theology  has  not  changed  this  fact,  and  does 
not  care  to  change  it,  and  cannot  change  it  since  it  is  a 
fact,  it  has  so  deepened  its  significance  that  God  is 
glorified  in  His  creation  as  never  before  in  the  history  of 
the  world.     Let  us  take  the  old  theological  conception 


RELIGION   AND   THEOLOGY  17 

of  creation  in  two  points  only:  (i)  size  of  creation, 
and  (2)  how  long  in  creating,  and  contrast  them 
with  the  modern  conception,  and  you  will  see  what 
I  mean. 

The  old  conception  was  that  this  earth  was  the 
largest  piece  of  matter  in  the  universe,  and  that  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  were  simply  electric  lights  hung  up 
in  the  sky  to  light  the  earth.  Contrast  this  with  the 
changed  conception  which  later-day  theology  teaches, 
that  this  earth  is  simply  a  speck  of  matter,  and  instead 
of  one  world  there  are  innumerable  worlds  vastly 
larger  than  this,  so  that  infinite  space  is  filled  with  in- 
finite number  of  worlds.  Which  conception  gives  you 
the  grander  idea  of  God  as  Creator  ? 

The  old  conception  was  that  in  six  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours  each  God  created  the  universe,  and  then 
rested.  The  modern  teaching  is  that  the  earth  reached 
its  present  form  through  long  geological  epochs  of 
creative  periods  lasting  thousands,  or  millions,  of 
years ;  that  when  we  look  out  into  the  heavens,  we  see 
worlds  in  all  stages  of  creation  to-day,  some  not  as  far 
advanced  as  this  earth,  and  others  dead  like  the  frozen 
moon.  As  men  are  constantly  born  and  dying  on  this 
earth  so  worlds  out  in  the  heavens  are  born  and  dying 
all  the  time. 

These  six  periods  of  the  growth  of  the  planets,  and 
the  life  which  inhabits  them,  are  believed  to  contain 
the  truth  dramatically  taught  in  the  first  chapters  in 
Genesis.  Which  gives  you  the  grander  idea  of  God  as 
Creator,  to  think  of  Him  creating  a  universe  about  as 
big  as  our  back  yards,  working  only  six  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours  each,  and  then  doing  nothing,  or  to  think  of 


i8  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Him  as  creating  throughout  infinite  time,  and  filling 
infinite  space  with  infinite  number  of  worlds  ?  Such  a 
conception  as  this  makes  God  Eternal  and  Infinite 
Creator. 

And  so  every  Article  of  the  Creed  of  Christendom, 
as  we  grow  in  knowledge,  grows  in  depth  and  signifi- 
cance of  meaning ;  for  in  this  way  alone  can  we  have  a 
Creed  true  to  the  facts  of  life,  so  simple  that  it  appeals 
alike  to  the  child  who  thinks  that  he  knows  all  it  means, 
and  also  to  the  thoughtful  Christian  who  knows  that 
he  will  never  exhaust  its  meaning  through  all  eternity. 

While  both  alike  believe  the  Creed,  it  means  vastly 
more  to  the  one  than  to  the  other.  So  these  varying 
explanations  of  the  facts  of  life  contained  in  the  Creed 
make  differing  theologies,  which  is  well  and  good; 
for  rightly  changing  theology  means  a  more  perfect 
understanding  of  the  facts  of  religion.  But  trouble 
arises  when  one  man  says,  '4f  you  do  not  accept  my 
theology,  you  cannot  be  a  member  of  my  Church." 
This  has  split  the  Christian  Church  into  innumerable 
sectarian  societies,  with  which  religion  has  had  nothing 
to  do  at  all.  The  trouble  is  caused  by  men  who  think 
that  they  have  exhausted  the  mind  of  God  when  they 
have  thought  out  their  systems  of  theology,  and  what 
is  good  for  one  man  must  be  equally  as  good  for  all 
men  in  all  stages  of  growth. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  the  spiritual  and  mental 
natures  of  man  go  on  growing  in  the  likeness  of  God, 
this  growth  changes  our  theology  to  correspond,  as 
the  growing  life  of  the  plant  changes  the  form  of  the 
plant  from  the  blade  into  the  stalk,  and  then  into  the 
full-grown  ear. 


RELIGION   AND   THEOLOGY  19 

The  paradox  of  life  is  that  in  the  midst  of  eternal 
change  of  form  it  remains  unchanged  and  changeless. 
This  great  law  expressed  in  terms  of  spiritual  life  is  that 
religion  remains  unchanged  in  the  midst  of  the  ages ; 
while  theology,  the  intellectual  form  with  which  it 
clothes  itself  from  age  to  age,  changes ;  also,  its  bodily 
form,  the  Church,  into  which  it  organizes  its  institu- 
tional Hfe,  changes  from  age  to  age,  in  proportion  to 
the  intensity,  power,  and  activity  of  its  deepening  and 
expanding  life. 

In  the  Bible  we  have  this  full,  complete,  and  pro- 
gressive revelation  of  religion,  culminating  in  the  in- 
carnation of  God  as  Christ- Jesus.  And,  as  there  was  a 
continuously  progressive  revelation  culminating  in 
Jesus,  so,  since  His  departure  in  the  flesh,  theology  has 
been  growing,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
into  a  more  comprehensive  grasp  of  this  unchanging 
religion,  which,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  came  to  perfec- 
tion in  the  person  of  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord. 

THE  FACTS  UPON  WHICH  RELIGION  IS  BASED 

Religion  is  based  upon  the  facts  of  the  universe,  in 
the  midst  of  which  every  man  exists,  whether  he  can 
explain  them  or  not ;  for  because  of  these  facts  he  lives, 
moves,  and  has  his  being,  without  which  he  would  be 
non-existent.  These  facts  are  summed  up  in  the  Creed 
of  Christendom,  beginning  with  ''I  believe  in  God  the 
Father  Almighty"  and  ending  with  ^^Life  everlasting." 

The  fundamental  mistake  made  at  the  time  of  the 
Reformation,  however,  was  not  the  assertion  of  the 
right,  and  the  actual  use  of  the  right,  by  the  individual 


20  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Christian  to  do  his  own  thinking,  from  which  the 
Roman  Church  tried  to  persuade  Luther  and  his 
followers  to  desist ;  but  the  mistake  was  made  by  the 
sectarian  Roman  and  then  by  the  sectarian  Protestant 
when  he  let  his  own  thinking  separate  him  from  his 
brethren  who  could  not  agree  with  him,  and  to  sub- 
stitute his  individual  theological  thinking  for  the  facts 
of  religion  contained  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  which  is 
our  bond  of  union  with  God  and  man.  The  bond  of 
union  which  unites  us  is  deeper  than  thought  —  it  is 
as  deep  as  life.  The  substitution  of  thought  for  the 
facts  of  life  as  the  basis  of  Church  unity  is  the  funda- 
mental mistake  both  Romanist  and  Protestant  made 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  and  have ,  made  ever 
since. 

The  one  body  of  Christians,  however,  who  did  not 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  make  this  mis- 
take was  the  Reformed  Church  of  England.  Here  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  made  a  great  con- 
tribution towards  uniting  a  divided  Christendom  by 
placing  religion,  and  the  facts  upon  which  religion  is 
founded,  the  Apostles'  Creed,  above  all  theology. 
How  great  this  contribution  has  been,  and  is,  the 
thoughtful  among  all  denominations  have  realized  for 
the  last  hundred  years ;  for  by  making  this  necessary 
distinction  between  religion,  and  theology,  and  the 
facts  of  religion,  every  phase  of  theology  in  Christen- 
dom has  found  a  home  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  without  disrupting  it. 

For  instance  take  this  article,  "the  resurrection  of 
the  body."  Doubtless  the  time  will  come,  if  we  ever 
perfectly  understand  what  the  resurrection  of  the  body 


RELIGION   AND   THEOLOGY  21 

means,  when  all  will  interpret  this  article  alike ;  but, 
if  at  the  present  time  and  stage  of  the  mental  and  spirit- 
ual development  of  mankind,  any  party  in  the  Church 
insisted  upon  all  people  in  the  Church  accepting  its 
explanation  of  this  article,  as  terms  of  communion  in 
the  Church,  it  would  become  sectarian  and  at  once 
disrupt  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  into  rival 
communions,  growing  out  of  the  unimportant  matter 
of  the  method  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body ;  for  all  of 
us  keep  the  faith,  as  long  as  we  believe  and  teach  the 
resurrection  of  the  body,  whether  we  can  satisfactorily 
explain  it  or  not.  Even  to-day,  there  are  doubtless 
many  Christians  who  believe  and  teach  that  the  identi- 
cal particles  put  away  in  the  grave  are  at  some  far  dis- 
tant day  reunited  to  the  same  spirit  which  they  once 
clothed.  Any  one  who  believes  this  is  just  as  orthodox 
as  I  am,  who  do  not  believe  it,  because  the  method  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  is  not  a  part  of  the  Christian 
faith,  but  a  pious  opinion  growing  out  of  one's  education 
and  personal  equation. 

THE  BONDS  WHICH  UNITE  THE  FAMILY 

What  binds  the  family  together  ?  It  is  not  knowl- 
edge —  for  you  have  the  infant  of  a  day  old  at  one  end 
and  the  gray-headed  father  at  the  other.  It  is  not  sex 
—  for  you  have  brother  and  sister.  It  is  not  wealth  — 
for  you  have  rich  and  poor.  What  then  is  it  which 
binds  the  family  together,  composed  of  so  different 
and  diverse  elements  ?  It  is  kinship  —  sharers  of  a 
common  nature  by  virtue  of  having  the  same  father 
and  mother  —  for  Kinship  cuts  to  the  foundation  of 


22  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

the  universe  !  The  very  essence  of  the  Christian  re- 
hgion  is  the  kinship  of  God  and  man. 

If  you  were  to  apply  the  test  of  being  members  of  the 
same  family  that  Christians  have  thought  necessary 
for  membership  in  the  Church  of  God,  you  would  split 
every  family  in  this  land  all  to  pieces.  The  babies 
would  be  in  one  family  by  themselves,  the  grown-up 
folks  in  another,  the  blue-eyed  ones  in  another  family, 
the  red-headed  ones  in  another,  until  you  would  abso- 
lutely destroy  the  idea  of  the  family  altogether,  having 
nothing  but  a  chaos  of  disconnected  individuals. 

As  nothing  less  than  a  common  basis  of  kinship  and 
love  can  kind  the  family  together,  so  nothing  less  can 
bind  the  Church  of  God  together.  The  kinship  of 
creation,  redemption,  and  sanctification  binds  us  all  to- 
gether in  the  one  immutable  family  of  God,  the  facts  of 
which  universal  kinship  make  the  Creed  of  Christendom 
called  the  Apostles'  Creed.  In  this  connection  Bishop 
Wescott  says :  ''No  interpretation  of  these  great  facts 
is  added.  They  belong  to  life.  They  are  in  them- 
selves unchangeable.  They  stand  before  us  forever  in 
their  subHme  majesty,  part  of  the  history  of  the  world. 
But  as  the  years  teach  us  more  and  more  of  the  divine 
revelation  which  they  convey,  so  we  interpret  them  for 
ourselves,  but  we  shall  be  slow  to  place  our  conclusions ^ 
even  the  simplest,  by  the  side  of  the  primary  facts." 
(Words  italicized  by  the  writer.) 

CHANGING  THEOLOGY  DOES  NOT  CHANGE  RELIGION 

So  every  man,  who  really  thinks  for  himself,  must 
remake  into  his  own  personality  every  phase  of  the 


RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY  23 

world-old  theology  through  which  mankind  has  passed ; 
for  theology  is  the  systematized  knowledge  of  our  rea- 
soned account  of  the  universe.  The  facts  of  religion 
have  the  same  relation  to  theology  that  the  sun,  moon, 
and  stars  have  to  astronomy.  The  astronomy  may 
be  all  wrong,  but  the  relation  the  heavenly  bodies  have 
to  one  another  changes  not ;  so  theology  in  certain  re- 
spects may  be  wrong,  certainly  always  imperfect,  but 
religion  changes  only  to  be  deepened  and  intensified. 
Neither  do  the  facts  upon  which  religion  is  based, 
the  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  relationships  of 
the  universe,  as  stated  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  change. 
As,  for  instance,  in  olden  times  the  Ptolemaic  system 
of  astronomy  was  accepted,  because  it  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained to  the  ancients  the  relationships  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies,  as  they  understood  them.  But  to-day 
all  this  astronomy  is  upset,  and  in  its  place  we  have  the 
Copernican  system;  and  should  this  system,  like  its 
predecessor,  go  up  in  smoke  and  out  in  ashes,  the  eter- 
nal relations  of  the  heavenly  bodies  would  change  not, 
but  go  on  chanting  their  wondrous  music  as  when  the 
morning  stars  sang  together.  Changing  astronomy 
does  not  change  the  stars ;  neither  does  changing  the- 
ology change  religion. 

There  are  Mohammedan,  Jewish,  Christian,  and 
innumerable  other  theologies,  but  the  religion  of  all 
these  is  the  same  to  the  extent  that  they  have  any  re- 
ligion at  all.  Most  of  the  religion  of  the  world  is  in 
the  heavens  and  not  on  the  streets  and  in  the  market- 
places, so  that  the  brotherhood  of  man  is,  as  far  as  our 
race  prejudice,  commercial  greed,  and  sectarian  theol- 
ogies can  make  it,  an  "iridescent  dream." 


24  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

INCARNATE  RELIGION  WANTED 

What  has  always  been  wanted  is  an  incarnate  reli- 
gion, —  heart  and  brain,  spirit  and  body,  hand  and 
foot,  laid  upon  the  altar  dedicated  to  the  service  of 
God  and  man,  —  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  Every 
heart  throb  of  that  man,  every  thought  of  his  brain, 
every  syllable  of  his  lips,  was  incarnate  religion.  No 
act  of  his  injured  any  man,  but  helped  all.  Every 
touch  brought  health,  every  word  brought  forth  light, 
His  very  presence  brought  forth  life.  He  was  in  Himself 
the  glorification  of  God  and  man.  In  Him,  lo,  since 
creation's  dawn  began,  religion  Hves,  breathes,  and 
walks  among  men.  His  religion  is  love  of  God  and 
man,  and  His  theology  is  but  the  explanation  of  His 
religion.  His  highest  praise  is  that  he  went  about 
doing  good. 

Every  man  who  walks  in  this  path  of  righteousness 
will  some  day  wake  up  in  the  presence  of  God.  No 
matter  how  crude,  imperfect,  or  erroneous  one's 
theology  may  be  to  start  with,  if  his  acts  square  with 
love  of  God  and  man,  and  his  conscience  is  kept  re- 
sponsive to  the  highest  light  vouchsafed  him,  he  will  be 
borne  heavenward  upon  the  wings  of  a  mighty  angel. 
Only  so  was  the  world  gradually  led  into  the  fulness  of 
that  knowledge  which  we  have  in  Christ- Jesus  our 
Lord. 

The  path  of  service  and  helpfulness  to  man  is  the 
only  path  of  light  to  God.  A  man  who  knows  nothing 
about  theology  and  loves  his  neighbor  is  a  better 
Christian  than  the  man  who  thinks  the  profoundest 
things  about  religion  and  does  not  love  his  neighbor. 


RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY  25 

Of  course,  no  one  places  a  higher  value  upon  the- 
ology than  I  do,  and  its  inseparableness  from  religion, 
but  rehgion  and  theology  are  two  distinct  things. 
Neither  am  I  defending  anything  so  foolish  as  to  say 
that  theology  is  not  necessary,  and  that  one  theology 
is  as  good  as  another.  What  the  world  really  wants  is 
not  less  but  more  and  better  theology,  as  it  wants  not 
less  but  more  and  better  science.  No  man  really  ob- 
jects to  theology,  but  to  what  he  thinks  is  superstition 
and  falsehood,  in  which  every  one  joins  him. 

HELPFUL  AND  HARMFUL  THEOLOGY 

We  all  agree  that  rehgion  is  love  of  God  and  man. 
All  theologies  are  an  attempt  on  our  part  to  form  as 
clear  a  conception  as  possible  of  God  and  His  relation 
to  us  and  to  the  universe ;  and  we  may  state  this  as 
being  an  axiom:  theology  may  be  a  help  or  a  hin- 
derance  to  us.  Theology  is  a  help  if  it  kindles  in  our 
hearts  a  flame  of  love  to  God  and  man.  But,  on  the 
one  hand,  our  love  towards  our  fellow-men  is  in  such  a 
rudimentary  state,  the  pride  in  our  infallibihty  is  so 
convincing,  that  we  will  be  tempted  to  anathematize,  if 
not  to  burn,  one  who  differs  with  us  theologically. 
On  the  other  hand,  our  imperfect  theology  will  so  pic- 
ture God  that  the  time  will  come  when  we  will  have  to 
give  up  our  theology  or  stop  loving  God,  because  our 
theology  presents  God  to  us  in  such  wise  that  we  can 
neither  believe  in  Him  nor  love  Him.  When  this  time 
comes,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  cling  all  the  tighter  to 
religion,  which  is  love  of  God  and  man,  infalHbly 
knowing   that   anything  which  tempts  us  to  isolate 


26  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

ourselves  from  our  brethren,  or  injure  them  by  word  or 
deed,  is  born  of  ignorance,  prejudice,  pride,  and  sin. 

A  theology,  however,  which  may  not  be  harmful  but 
helpful  in  one  stage  of  our  development  may,  at  a 
later  stage,  be  more  deadly  than  hemlock.  What  is 
one  man's  food  is  another  man's  poison.  We  recognize 
this  law  in  the  physical  world,  but  will  we  ever  do  so  in 
the  spiritual  world  ?  We  can  take  this  as  an  infallible 
guide:  whenever  the  theology  in  which  we  have  been 
educated,  however  much  it  may  have  helped  us  in  the 
past,  begins  to  cramp  and  contradict  our  love  of  God 
and  man,  it  has  done  its  work,  and  it  is  time  for  us  to 
get  another  theology,  for  God  is  showing  us  new  and 
better  things. 

NOT  LESS   BUT  BETTER   THEOLOGY  WANTED 

Religion  is  not  dead  but  is  alive  and  growing,  as  this 
present-day  death  of  outgrown  theology  proves.  It  is 
the  inevitable  birth  pangs  of  the  age  into  a  truer  con- 
ception of  Christ,  into  a  higher  life,  and  therefore 
into  a  better  and  truer  theology  which  squares  itself 
with  all  the  facts  of  life. 

Rehgion  has  grown  in  the  hearts  of  men  until  they 
see  that  nothing  is  religion  except  love  of  God  and  man ; 
that  conduct  is  of  as  much  importance  as  creed; 
righteousness  as  theology ;  and  that  all  creeds  will  re- 
ceive their  final  acceptance  or  rejection  solely  by  the 
kinds  of  lives  which  they  necessarily  produce.  Creed 
and  Theology,  Church  and  Sacrament,  will  always  be 
as  long  as  rehgion  is  in  the  world,  but  the  time  has 
come  when  all  theologies  will  be  swept  away  which 


RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY  27 

are  not  true  to  the  facts  of  life,  that  stifle  the  divine 
instincts  of  the  human  heart,  and  do  not  teach  us 
to  worship  a  God  more  merciful  than  we  are. 

And  when  I  find  such  a  soul  as  this,  I  stretch  my  hand 
across  all  ages,  climes,  and  races,  and  clasp  his  hand  in 
mine,  in  the  fellowship  of  the  one  Father  of  us  all, 
before  whose  throne  we  bow;  for  I  have  found  a 
brother  in  Christ,  the  common  head  of  the  common 
race;  and  of  a  truth,  "I  perceive  that  God  is  no  re- 
specter of  persons ;  but  in  every  nation  he  that  f ear- 
eth  Him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is  acceptable  to 
Him"  —  and  him  whom  God  accepts  let  no  man  dare 
reject! 


in 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY 

St.  Paul  is  always  the  statesman  of  the  Church. 
He  saw  beneath  the  shallows  of  things  into  the  eternal 
spirit  of  things,  and  in  the  midst  of  infinite  variety 
saw  all  things  united  in  God,  and  speaks  of  our  oneness 
with  the  Father  through  the  Son  and  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  the  bond  of  Christian  Unity.  His  outline  is : 
(i)  One  God  and  Father  of  us  all ;  (2)  one  Lord,  one 
faith,  one  baptism  of  all ;  (3)  one  body,  one  spirit,  one 
hope  of  all.     (Ephesians  4  : 1-16.) 

Upon  all  these  ones  unified  in  God  St.  Paul  bases  the 
unity  of  the  Church,  and  he  no  sooner  states  the  unity 
of  the  Church  than  he  shows  the  diversity  in  this  unity 
in  these  words :  ''Unto  every  one  of  us  is  given  grace 
according  to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ."  And 
the  sin  of  sectarianism  is  that  men  have  perverted  and 
distorted  this  one  gift  of  the  divine  Spirit  into  endless 
causes  of  division  by  using  the  richness  and  diversity 
of  the  one  spirit  as  the  power  with  which  to  rend  the 
Church  of  God  into  paralyzing  ineffectiveness  by  the 
strife  and  bitterness  of  sectarian  narrowness,  conceit, 
and  prejudice. 

DIVINE   UNITY  OF  THE  CHURCH 

But  happily  and  fortunately  for  us  the  essential 
unity  of  the  Church  of  God  is  divine,  which  none  of  us 
can  make  or  break. 

28 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY  29 

(i)  There  is  one  God  and  Father  of  us  all.  This  is 
the  basis  of  divine  unity.  We  are  all  children  of  one 
family,  —  all  of  us,  Romanist,  Greek,  Anglican,  and 
Protestant ;  yes,  even  Turk,  Jew,  Heretic,  and  Infidel. 
Of  these  the  words  of  the  prophet  are  true:  ''Have 
we  not  all  one  Father  ?  Hath  not  one  God  created  us  ?  " 
(Malachi  2  :  10.)  And  the  Christian  Church  is  the  one 
home  to  which  the  Father  recalls  his  wandering  sons. 
Can  there  be  many  families,  many  homes,  with  one 
head  ? 

(2)  There  is  but  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  died  to 
redeem  us,  and  ascended  to  raise  us.  There  is  only 
one  Christ;  how  can  those  who  call  themselves  by 
His  name,  who  acknowledged  Him  as  Lord  and  Master, 
ever  be  but  one  in  Him  ? 

(3)  Since  there  is  but  one  Lord,  how  can  there  be 
but  one  Faith  ?  For  the  Christian  faith  is  simply  the 
facts  concerning  the  one  Lord. 

(4)  There  is  not  only  one  God,  one  Lord,  and  one 
faith,  but  one  baptism.  Baptism  is  a  means  of  express- 
ing our  faith  in  God  and  His  method  of  entering  into 
personal  union  with  us.  It  is  therefore  always  one 
and  the  same. 

(5)  This  one  baptism  of  all  Christians  makes  them 
one  body  in  Christ.  In  baptism  we  find  stress  laid 
upon  the  outward  as  well  as  upon  the  inward  —  stress 
laid  upon  the  body  as  well  as  upon  the  spirit.  Just 
as  there  are  in  every  man  two  parts:  the  outward  body 
which  we  can  see  and  recognize ;  the  inward  spirit  which 
makes  the  body  alive,  without  which  there  would  be  no 
body  but  a  dead  mass  of  matter.  The  Church  is  the 
one  body  of  Christ  (i  Cor.  12  :  17) ;  something  which 


so  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

men  can  see  and  recognize;  and  the  one  Spirit,  the 
Holy  Spirit,  whose  indwelHng  makes  the  Church,  the 
incarnate  body  of  Christ,  aHve. 

This  is  the  Scriptural  and  ideal  oneness  of  the 
Church ;  One  Father  to  whom  His  wandering  children 
are  brought  back ;  one  master,  Christ,  has  brought  us 
back ;  concerning  whom  there  is  one  faith;  and  into 
whose  body  there  is  one  baptism;  one  Holy  Spirit  who 
inspires  and  makes  aHve  the  one  body  of  Christ  and 
enables  us  to  press  forward  to  the  one  hope  of  our  call- 
ing, even  to  the  riches  of  our  one  inheritance  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  in  Paradise,  and  in  Heaven. 
This  is  the  complete  outline  of  the  divine  unity  of  the 
Church;  nothing  is  lacking;  nothing  is  superfluous, 
for  there  is  the  one  spirit  incarnate  in  the  one  body, 
the  Church. 


ONE    SPIRIT    AND    ONE    FAITH    MAKE    OUTWARD    UNITY 

If  any  one  at  this  point  says,  as  people  do  say,  that 
the  present  outward  division  among  Christians  is  of 
no  consequence;  that  if  Christians  have  one  spirit  and 
one  faith,  it  is  enough,  we  reply :  unity  of  spirit  makes 
unity  of  body.  When  you  separate  spirit  from  body, 
we  call  that  'Meath."  Nothing  has  ever  worked  or 
been  effective  in  this  world  apart  from  body,  not  even 
God.  Upon  entrance  into  this  world  He  came  with 
body.  ''The  Word  made  flesh  "  is  the  universal  pro- 
cess of  how  spirit  enters  and  works  in  this  world. 
And  until  there  is  enough  vitality  in  the  one  spirit 
and  the  one  faith  of  Christians  to  build  us  into  one 
firmly  knit  and  compactly  organized  body,  to  hope  or 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY  31 

dare  dream  that  the  Church  can  do  the  work  which 
God  intends  it  to  do  is  sheer  nonsense.  The  fire  under 
the  open  boiling  pot  generates  steam,  but  it  cannot 
turn  a  sewing  machine.  It  is  wasted  power.  But 
when  you  confine  steam  in  a  mighty  engine,  there  is  no 
limit  to  its  power  and  usefulness  because  it  is  com- 
bined and  unified  in  a  body.  One  drop  of  water  is  a 
helpless  thing,  but  when  you  have  untold  numbers  of 
these  combined  and  unified  by  granite  walls,  you  have 
the  rushing  mighty  Niagara  sufficient  to  turn  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  world,  and  the  St.  Lawrence  upon  which 
to  float  the  fleets  of  the  world.  The  United  States 
is  a  powerful  country  because  it  is  united,  and  all  the 
power  of  the  units  can  act  as  one  unit  through  the 
President.  If  this  was  not  so,  the  United  States  would 
be  no  stronger  than  the  strongest  prize  fighter  in  it. 

The  forces  and  powers  that  are  forceful  and  powerful 
are  united  and  embodied  forces  and  powers.  Our 
Saviour,  when  He  prayed  that  His  Church  might  be 
one,  knew  what  He  was  about.  What  He  prayed  and 
worked  for  is  worth  our  while  to  work  and  pray  for. 
But  in  the  teeth  of  all  this  people  try  to  persuade 
themselves  that  the  Church  of  God  splintered  all  to 
fragments  is  more  effective  than  one  united  Church. 

The  rapidity  with  which  the  Church  spread  through- 
out the  Roman  Empire  is  one  of  the  many  sudden  and 
remarkable  surprises  of  history.  In  one  hundred  years 
the  Church  was  planted  wherever  the  Roman  eagles 
had  been  borne.  Together  with  the  wonderful  pre- 
paredness of  the  world  for  the  Christian  religion,  these 
words  will  give  you  the  cause  of  its  rapid  spread: 
''They  continued  steadfastly  in  the  Apostles^  doctrine 


32  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

—  the  one  faith ;  in  the  Apostles^  fellowship  —  the  one 
body ;  breaking  bread  —  the  sacramental  unity  begun 
in  one  baptism ;  the  prayers  —  joining  in  common 
worship  as  children  of  the  one  Father;  for  a  person 
who  was  a  member  of  one  congregation  was  a  member 
of  all,  and  a  person  who  was  a  minister  in  one  congre- 
gation was  a  minister  in  all.  This  unity,  which  won 
such  signal,  rapid,  and  far-reaching  conquests  in  the 
first  centuries,  we  have  shattered  into  hundreds  of 
fragments,  losing  effectiveness  and  power  to  the  extent 
that  the  unity  has  been  broken. 

DREARY    CHAOS    OF    INFALLIBLE    INDIVIDUALISM 

It  is  said  that  the  darkest  hour  always  comes  just 
before  the  dawn ;  so,  when  the  Church  is  most  divided, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  most  rational  and 
genuine  hope  for  Church  unity. 

(i)  The  break  with  the  monarchial  mediaeval  Roman 
Church  was  necessary  before  the  Christian  Church 
could  have  its  higher  and  more  perfect  democratic 
and  constitutional  organization.  Sectarianism  is  the 
price  we  paid  for  this,  which,  with  all  its  attendant 
evils,  has  brought  great  gains.  Sectarianism,  with 
every  variety  of  theology  and  form  of  ritual,  has  made 
it  impossible  for  us  again  to  identify  religion  with  any 
one  theology  and  ritual,  but  has  taught  us  that  these 
are  the  necessary  stages  through  which  men,  when  once 
they  begin  to  think,  pass  in  their  attempts  to  under- 
stand Christianity.  Without  this  perfect  Kberty  of 
thought,  which  the  break  with  Rome  made  possible, 
progress  in  theology  would  have  been  an  impossibility. 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY  33 

The  break  with  mediaevalism  which  unshackled  the 
human  mind  has  been  the  indirect  cause  of  giving  us 
the  grandest  theology  that  the  world  has  ever  known. 

(2)  There  is  hope  of  Church  unity  in  the  fact  that 
the  majority  of  the  members  of  all  Church  Societies 
when  asked  why  they  are  members  of  this  or  that 
Society  reply:  because  our  ancestors  were;  and  we 
remain  because  of  business  connections  and  social  ties. 
The  hope  in  this  state  of  things  is  that  the  children  no 
longer  find  any  interest  in  the  things  which  divided 
our  ancestors,  because  the  forces  and  issues,  partly 
political  and  partly  theological,  which  divided  the 
Church  are  dead  forces  and  issues.  The  laity  do  not 
care  enough  about  these  things  to  disinter  them  from 
their  decent  burial  in  cyclopaedias.  The  hope  in  this 
state  of  things  is  that  a  Church,  run  upon  ancestor 
worship,  business  connections,  and  social  ties,  cannot 
last  and  ought  not  to  last.  It  takes  God,  and  the 
truth  of  God,  and  all  the  truth  God  has  revealed  in 
Christ- Jesus  our  Lord,  to  keep  our  souls  alive  and 
make  them  grow  into  the  fulness  of  His  stature.  Sec- 
tarianism makes  lean,  stunted,  and  starved  Christians, 
because  they  feed  upon  fragmentary,  sectarian  truth, 
and  not  upon  the  whole  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ- Jesus. 

The  people  of  this  country  will  not  let  the  dead 
quarrels  of  our  ancestors  forever  separate  us  from  one 
another.  We  will  forever  honor  them  for  the  sacrifices 
which  they  made  for  the  precious  truth  which  they 
have  recovered  and  given  us,  and  we  will  engraft  and 
reincorporate  it  into  the  one  Church  of  God  —  the 
truth  which  the  Christian  prophets  have  recovered  for 
us.    John  Calvin  rescued  the  doctrine  of  the  sover- 


34  THE    CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

eignty  of  God  and  the  election  of  man  from  the  obliv- 
ion in  which  they  were  buried,  and  with  them  broke 
the  rights  divine  of  kings ;  Martin  Luther  the  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith,  and  with  it  broke  the  usurpa- 
tion of  Pope  and  priest;  Roger  Williams  fought  to 
successful  issue  the  right  of  every  man  to  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience ; 
John  Wesley  that  religion  is  a  vital  personal  spiritual 
experience  in  every  individual  soul.  These  are  truths 
which  the  Church  can  never  again  afford  to  forget, 
if  we  are  to  have  the  Christian  faith  in  the  perfect 
proportions  of  its  life-giving  power  and  grace;  but 
we  who  live  to-day  can  most  honor  these  men  who 
rediscovered  these  priceless  truths  for  us,  by  recovering 
that  truth  which  they  lost  when  they  broke  the  unity 
of  the  Church. 

(3)  The  most  hopeful  sign  is  that  we  are  beginning 
to  recognize  that  there  is  some  truth  in  every  one  of  the 
187  societies  in  the  Church  Universal,  but  all  the  truth 
in  none,  and  that  it  takes  all  the  truth  to  save  us. 
There  is  secret  and  often  openly  expressed  dissatis- 
faction in  all  the  Christian  societies  in  Christendom, 
not  because  of  the  truth  which  they  teach,  but  because 
of  the  truth  which  they  do  not  teach.  This  will  be  so 
until  every  Christian  has  all  the  truth  of  God  in  the 
beauty  of  its  holiness. 

REAL  UNITY  AMONG  ALL  CHRISTLANS 

But  what  I  wish  to  emphasize  now  is  that  when  man 
has  done  his  worst,  there  remains  a  real  unity  among  all 
Christians  which  man  cannot  break;   and  because  in 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY  35 

the  deepest  and  most  real  sense  Christian  unity  never 
has  been  broken,  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  and 
education  when  the  grace  of  God  will  reunite  into  the 
unity  of  His  Church  that  which  we  have  shattered 
into  hundreds  of  fragments. 

I  mean  this :  there  is  a  unity  which  must  exist  be- 
tween all  Christians,  whether  they  call  themselves 
Anglicans,  Evangelicals,  or  Romanists.  Our  unity  in 
the  deepest  sense  we  cannot  make  nor  can  we  break. 
Our  unity  is  in  God  the  Father.  There  is  a  unity  among 
the  children  of  a  family  which  those  children  did  not 
make  and  cannot  dissolve.  They  may  quarrel ;  they 
may  refuse  to  speak  to  one  another ;  they  may  live  as 
far  apart  as  the  poles ;  yet  they  are  still  brothers  and 
sisters  and  can  never  be  anything  else.  They  did 
not  make  their  brotherhood  nor  can  they  unmake  it. 
So  we  will  forever  continue  to  say,  ''I  believe  in  the 
Holy  Catholic  Church,"  though  the  ignorance,  prej- 
udice, and  sin  of  man  rend  it  into  a  million  fragments. 

How  are  we  one  in  spite  of  all  these  things  ?  In  this 
way :  One  God  and  Father  of  us  all  —  Him  we  all 
worship.  Is  there  not  One  Lord?  Whoever  thought 
that  Anglicans,  Evangelicals,  or  Romanists  believed 
in  different  Christs?  Is  there  not  one  faith?  Do  we 
not  all  hold  the  same  faith  in  Christ  as  expressed  in  the 
Creed  ? 

And  is  there  not  one  baptism?  No  educated  Chris- 
tian says :  I  was  Baptized  into  the  Baptist  Church ; 
I  was  baptized  into  the  Episcopal  Church;  I  was 
baptized  into  the  Methodist  Church  ;  even  the  Roman- 
ist says,  as  the  great  body  of  the  Church  has  said  in  all 
the  ages,  that  every  one  baptized  with  water  into  the 


36  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

triune  name  of  God  is  baptized  into  the  Church  of 
God.  There  is  but  one  baptism;  it  refuses  to  be  called 
by  any  sectarian  name ;  it  is  Christian  baptism. 

No  person  was  ever  baptized  into  any  sectarian 
society.  No  sect  ever  laid  its  name  upon  the  formula 
of  Christian  baptism  and  changed  it,  saying,  I  baptize 
thee  into  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  or  Roman  society ; 
but  every  one  who  has  been  baptized  was  in  this  way : 
''I  baptize  thee  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  which  baptism  makes 
one  a  member  of  the  Church  of  God. 

For  as  St.  Paul  says,  i  Cor.  12  :  13  :  ^'By  one  spirit 
we  are  all  baptized  into  one  body."  And  no  believer 
in  Christ  who  is  sincere  and  true  in  his  faith,  no  matter 
how  mistaken  he  may  be  in  his  opinions,  has  lost  the 
Holy  Spirit.  When  we  look  around  and  see  the  fruits 
of  the  spirit  in  all  the  sects  of  Christendom,  there  is 
but  one  answer  to  be  given  —  they  all  have  the  Spirit 
but  none  all  of  it,  each  only  according  to  the  gift  of 
Christ;  therefore  each  needs  the  other,  and  no  one 
can  be  complete  without  the  truth  the  other  holds. 
Therefore  the  Church  of  the  future  will  hold  and  em- 
brace in  itself  all  the  truth  held  in  all  the  sects  in  unity. 
Here  is  the  basis  of  Christian  unity  none  of  us  made 
and  none  of  us  can  break :  One  Lord,  one  faith,  one 
baptism,  one  Spirit,  one  hope  and  calling  for  us  all. 
Here  we  are  all  united. 

SUPERSTRUCTURES  OF  WOOD  AND  STUBBLE 

Our  divisions  begin  the  moment  that  we  add  to  this 
foundation  superstructures  of  antagonistic  and  mutu- 


CHRISTIAN   UNITY  37 

ally  exclusive  systems  of  theology  which  separate  and 
bar  us  off  one  from  the  other.  The  practical  question 
for  all  Christian  people  is  what  can  we  do  to  transcend 
these  imperfect  and  exclusive  theologies  which  have 
divided  the  Church  of  God  into  hostile  sects?  This 
is  the  purpose  of  ''Kinship  of  God  and  Man/'  written 
from  beginning  to  end  in  the  interest  of  ^'  Church 
unity."  First  of  all,  we  can  by  the  grace  of  God  try 
to  accomplish  that  hardest  of  all  tasks,  rid  ourselves 
and  those  we  can  influence  of  unworthy  prejudice. 
Alexander  Stephens,  in  one  of  the  most  memorable 
speeches  ever  delivered  in  Congress,  said  :  ''Prejudice  ! 
what  wrongs,  what  injuries,  what  mischiefs,  what 
lamentable  consequences  have  resulted  at  all  times 
from  this  perversity  of  the  intellect;  of  all  the  ob- 
stacles to  the  advancement  of  truth  and  human  prog- 
ress in  every  department  of  knowledge  —  in  science,  in 
art,  in  government,  in  religion,  in  all  ages  and  climes  — 
not  one  is  more  formidable,  more  difficult  to  overcome 
and  subdue,  than  this  distortion  of  the  moral  as  well 
as  the  intellectual  faculties.  One  of  the  highest  exhi- 
bitions of  the  moral  sublime  the  world  ever  witnessed 
was  that  of  Daniel  Webster,  who  after  Faneuil  Hall 
was  denied  him,  he  in  an  open  barouche  in  the  streets 
of  Boston  proclaimed  to  a  vast  assembly  of  his  con- 
stituents —  unwilling  hearers  —  that  they  had  con- 
quered the  winds  and  currents  of  the  ocean;  they 
had  conquered  an  uncongenial  clime;  they  had  con- 
quered a  sterile  soil ;  but  they  must  yet  learn  to  con- 
quer their  prejudices  !" 

What  Alexander  Stephens  said  to  the  people  of  the 
North  and  South  needs  to  be  said  in  every  Christian 


38  THE  CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

society  in  the  Church:  let  us  conquer  our  prejudices; 
for  our  own  prejudice,  and  the  worship  of  our  ancestors' 
prejudices,  are  far  more  potent  factors  in  keeping  the 
Christian  societies  apart  than  any  supposed  antago- 
nistic truths  we  may  hold.  The  truth  we  hold,  if  truth 
indeed  it  be,  cannot  be  antagonistic  to  the  truth  any 
other  man  holds,  but  complementary.  This  is  the  first 
thing  never  to  be  forgotten.  Second,  we  can  teach 
those  committed  to  us  what  we  believe  and  why  we 
believe  it,  exactly  what  things  are  essential  and  why 
they  are  essential.  Third,  we  can  learn  not  to  ignore 
the  unity  which  already  exists,  but  cooperate  as  chil- 
dren of  the  one  Father,  believers  in  one  Lord,  filled 
with  the  one  Spirit,  as  the  eternal  basis  of  Christian 
unity  and  the  only  hope  of  Church  unity.  This  we 
shall  attempt  to  do  in  the  succeeding  chapters. 


PART   II 

THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM   OF 
THE   CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 


IV 

THE  THREEFOLD  SACRAMENT  OF  ETERNAL  LIFE 

The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  quotes  Jesus  as 
saying :  *' Search  the  Scriptures ;  for  in  them  ye  think 
ye  have  eternal  life :  and  they  are  they  which  testify 
of  me.  And  ye  will  not  come  to  me,  that  ye  might 
have  life/'  Jesus  here  teaches  that  we  do  not  receive 
eternal  life  through  our  natural  (psychic)  birth,  but 
through  a  spiritual  birth  which  transcends  our  psychic 
birth.  Before  proceeding  further  let  us  carefully 
define  the  meaning  of  these  words  —  eternal,  ever- 
lasting, and  temporal.  When  this  is  done,  we  shall 
find  that  ''Eternal  Life"  contains  the  distinct  and 
unique  message  of  Christianity. 

The  best  and  perhaps  the  only  way  in  which  we  can 
understand  what  Jesus  means  by  eternal  life  is  to 
contrast  it  with  our  psychic  and  material  life,  for  we 
understand  one  thing  only  as  we  contrast  it  with  other 
things.  What  is  meant  by  our  psychic  and  material 
life  is  stated  in  Gen.  2:7:  "God  made  man's  body 
(material  self)  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and 
breathed  into  him  the  spirit  of  life,  and  man  became  a 
living  soul  (psyche)."  Our  highest  birth,  a  spiritual 
birth,  we  do  not  receive  from  Adam  but  from  Jesus, 
which  St.  Paul  states  in  these  words :  "The  first  Adam 
was  made  a  living  soul,  the  second  Adam  a  life-giving 
spirit."    According  to  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  man 

41 


42  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

has  a  threefold  birth;  the  first  from  the  material 
world,  the  second  from  Adam,  and  the  third  from 
Jesus ;  the  first  birth  gives  us  a  material  self  which  is 
temporal,  the  second  a  psychical  or  mental  self  which 
is  everlasting,  and  the  third  a  spiritual  self  which  is 
eternal. 


MEANING  OF  ETERNAL,  EVERLASTING,  AND  TEMPORAL 

(i)  These  words  define  duration  of  life.  Temporal 
life  has  both  a  beginning  and  an  end,  everlasting  life 
has  a  beginning  but  no  end,  while  eternal  life  has 
neither  a  beginning  nor  an  end.  This  is  quite  familiar, 
but  what  is  not  as  well  known  as  it  should  be  is 

(2)  That  these  words  define  quality  of  life.  Tem- 
poral life  describes  the  life  of  nature  below  man; 
everlasting,  the  psychic  life  of  man ;  and  eternal,  divine 
life  as  it  exists  in  God  alone,  and  as  He  begets  it  in 
the  incarnation  of  Himself  as  Jesus,  and  imparts  it  to 
us  by  baptism.  This  will  become  perfectly  clear  as 
soon  as  we  know  what  the  New  Testament  means  by 
baptism. 

(3)  Quality  of  life  determines  its  duration.  Out  of 
the  divineness  of  life  grows  its  eternal  duration,  which 
always  is  —  past,  present,  and  future.  (Rev.  i :  8.) 
Out  of  the  psychic  quality  of  life  grows  its  everlasting 
duration,  which  once  begun  always  exists.  Out  of 
the  material  quality  of  life  grows  its  temporal  dura- 
tion, which  to-day  is  and  to-morrow  is  not. 

(4)  We  find  this  threefold  quahty  and  duration  of 
life  progressively  embodied  in  separate  types;  a 
monkey  has  material-sensational  temporal  life,  Adam 


THE   THREEFOLD   SACRAMENT  43 

psychic-human  everlasting  life,  Jesus  divine-human 
eternal  life.  The  Hfe  of  the  flesh  is  temporal,  the  life 
of  the  soul  is  everlasting,  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  eternal. 
In  the  Christian  we  find  this  threefold  life  —  temporal, 
everlasting,  and  eternal  —  incarnated  in  the  unity  of  a 
material,  psychic,  and  spiritual  birth.  We  shall  pass 
over  our  material  and  psychic  births  and  return  to 
them  later,  while  for  the  present  we  confine  our 
attention  to  our  spiritual  birth  which  makes  us 
Christians,  and,  as  such,  partakers  of  eternal  life. 

HOW  WE  KNOW  THAT  WE  HAVE  ETERNAL  LIFE 

It  is  one  of  the  most  readily  accepted  of  all  axioms 
that  one  can  know  another  to  no  further  extent  than 
their  Hkeness ;  as,  for  instance,  a  horse  cannot  know  us 
as  our  child  does,  because  our  child  partakes  of  our 
psychic  nature,  while  a  horse  does  not. 

It  is  also  a  truism  that  we  may  know  a  good  deal 
about  a  person  without  really  knowing  the  person. 
Only  the  pure  know  the  pure,  only  the  good  know  the 
good,  only  the  brave  know  the  brave.  One  person 
very  rarely  knows  many  people.  We  may  meet 
them  on  the  street,  call  their  names,  tell  a  good  deal 
about  them,  and  still  not  know  the  person,  because 
there  are  in  you  no  conscious  deeps  corresponding  to 
the  incarnate  depths  in  the  other  person.  Men  and 
women  may  marry,  and  be  given  in  marriage,  and  live 
together  for  years  without  really  ever  knowing  each 
other,  because  diverse  in  the  realm  of  their  highest 
aspirations,  hopes,  and  loves. 

To  know  human  life  I  must  be  human,  and  to  know 


44  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

the  highest  and  deepest  experiences  of  human  life,  I 
must  have  the  deepest  quality  of  human  life.  No 
less  than  yourself  can  know  yourself;  the  same  is 
true  of  God.  Therefore  because  in  Jesus  we  find  the 
deepest  quaHties  of  spiritual  Hfe,  purity  and  love,  we 
for  the  first  time  know  God  and  man,  and  understand 
what  eternal  Hfe  means.  *^  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart  for  they  see  God.  We  know  that  we  have  passed 
from  death  to  Hfe  because  we  love  the  brethren.'' 


WHAT  ETERNAL  LIFE  MEANS 

Let  us  clearly  imderstand  that,  when  God  offers  us 
the  gift  of  eternal  Hfe  through  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord, 
He  is  not  making  a  proposition  merely  to  per- 
petuate the  pure,  nor  the  sin-stained,  psychic  Hfe 
which  if  perpetuated  forever  would  be  endless,  but 
not  eternal  Hfe.  On  the  contrary  Jesus  teUs  us  that 
the  only  way  in  which  we  can  get  this  eternal  Hfe  is 
by  transcending  the  psychic  Hfe  which  we  receive  by 
natural  birth,  by  being  born  again,  anew,  and  from 
above,  by  a  spiritual  birth. 

He  teUs  us  what  eternal  Hfe  is  in  this  remarkable 
verse  of  Scripture  :  ''And  this  is  eternal  Hfe,  that  they 
might  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  Thou  hast  sent."  ''Knowledge  of  God"  is 
eternal  Hfe.  This  knowledge  of  God  comes  through 
Christ,  the  eternal  Hght  which  Hghteth  every  man  who 
comes  into  the  world,— Abraham,  Moses,  Plato, 
Buddha,  aH  sages  and  men  of  wisdom  before  and  since 
His  historical  incarnation  as  Jesus  —  and  he  who  par- 
takes of  this  knowledge  of  God  is,  to  the  extent  that 


THE   THREEFOLD   SACRAMENT  45 

he  partakes  of  this  knowledge,  made  a  partaker  of 
eternal  life.  This  is  what  baptism  does,  of  which  the 
sacrament  of  baptism  is  the  symbol.  What  baptism, 
the  sacrament  of  baptism,  and  the  symbol  of  baptism 
are,  will  be  explained  later  on. 

WHAT  BAPTISM  DOES 

It  is  sufficient  for  the  present  to  say  that  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism  is  the  symbol  of  the  birth  of  eternal 
life,  and  when  we  understand  what  Jesus  means  by 
eternal  life,  we  shall  know  that  length  of  life,  mere 
duration  indefinitely  extended,  is  not  eternal  life. 
Suppose  a  tree  was  planted  to-day  and  then  grew  on 
and  on  forever,  still  that  tree  would  not  have  eternal 
life  though  it  would  have  everlasting  life;  that  is, 
endless  life.  In  like  manner  suppose  that  we  run  up 
the  scale  of  life.  Take  any  fish  that  swims,  and  reptile 
that  crawls,  any  beast  that  walks,  and  conceive  its 
life  perpetuated  forever ;  not  any  of  these  would  be 
made  partakers  of  eternal  life.  An  endless  life,  yes; 
but  an  eternal  life,  no ;  for  eternal  life  means  more  than 
endless  duration  of  life  as  a  fish,  bird,  beast,  or  psychic 
man.     It  transcends  all  such  qualities  of  life. 

Excluding  all  lower  orders  of  creation  except  man, 
and  among  men  we  will  include  the  sensualist,  the 
thief,  the  drunkard,  and  all  immoral  people ;  and 
suppose  the  lives  of  these  to  be  perpetuated  forever, 
just  as  we  now  know  them,  without  any  advancement 
in  goodness  or  increased  wisdom  in  that  knowledge  of 
God  which  we  have  in  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord,  still  the 
perpetuation  of  such  a  life  as  this  would  not  be  life 


46  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

eternal.  Jesus  never  called  such  a  life  as  this  eter- 
nal life.  In  order  for  us  to  understand  what  Jesus  is 
offering  to  the  world,  and  what  He  calls  eternal  life, 
let  us  realize  that  duration,  as  measured  in  days, 
months,  and  years,  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  nor  will 
it  give  us  any  idea  of  it  at  all.  What  He  calls  eternal 
life  is  a  certain  quality  of  life,  the  life  of  God  Himself, 
which  is  without  beginning  or  end,  so  that  although 
He  lived  here  upon  the  earth  in  the  flesh  as  Jesus  for 
only  a  few  years,  still  that  length  of  life  is  eternal  life. 
It  is  the  life  which  He  had  with  the  Father  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world,  and  the  life  we  must  live  if 
we  would  live  in  eternity  —  the  sinless  spiritual  life 
which  he  imparts  to  mankind,  and  is  given  to  us  by 
our  baptism  into  Christ. 

That  quality  of  life,  eternal  life,  He  offers  to  us  freely, 
without  money  and  without  price  to-day  and  now,  if 
we  will  give  up  our  sinful  life  of  flesh  and  blood  which 
we  are  living,  and  take  Him  for  our  guide  and  loyal 
master  to  rule  and  shape  our  lives  into  the  mould  of 
His  divine  pattern,  He  will  give  us  eternal  life  by  the 
spiritual  birth  which  our  baptism  into  Him  gives  us. 

WHAT  CONFIRMATION  DOES 

We  have  already  seen  that  we  have  an  endless  psy- 
chic life  by  our  natural  birth.  Our  souls  will  not  be- 
come extinct  at  physical  death.  They  will  live  on 
and  on,  from  aeon  to  aeon,  for  all  live  unto  God.  So 
Jesus  comes  to  us  with  this  simple  proposition :  you 
have  an  endless  life  already  by  virtue  of  your  psychic 
birth.    What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it,  my  brother  ? 


THE  THREEFOLD   SACRAMENT  47 

Reiterated  in  our  more  solemn  hours  which  we  all 
have ;  in  the  stillness  of  the  night,  in  some  crisis  of  our 
liveSj  upon  the  bed  of  sickness,  in  sudden  peril  and 
danger;  when  we  are  alone  with  God;  just  we  two, 
God  and  myself  face  to  face  —  no  evasion,  no  escape. 
When  God  comes  walking  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of 
the  evening,  and  God  says  to  me,  ''My  child,  what 
are  you  going  to  do  with  your  endless  life?  Some 
kind  of  a  life  you  are  going  to  live  everlastingly.  If  it 
is  going  to  be  merely  an  everlasting  sin-stained  psychic 
life,  it  will  be  your  greatest  curse  !  I  gave  you  that 
endless  psychic  life  that  you  might  freely  give  it  back 
to  me  and  receive  the  blessing  of  a  transcendent  eternal 
life.  Learn  of  me;  and  that  knowledge  will  be  eternal 
life." 

God  by  His  eternal  omnipresent  Spirit  and  incar- 
nate as  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord  makes  this  offer  to  every 
child  He  has  created  out  of  the  ground.  When  we 
by  the  help  of  God  take  Jesus  for  our  Lord  and  say : 
*'Good-by  lust;  good-by  revenge;  good-by selfishness ; 
good-by  lying  and  cheating  and  defrauding  —  out ! 
out !  ye  thieves  and  robbers  of  life  eternal !  Enter, 
enter,  life  eternal,  and  reign  thou  upon  the  throne  of 
my  heart !"  This  is  what  confirmation  does,  of  which 
the  sacrament  of  confirmation  is  the  symbol,  and  is 
how  we  make  the  life  of  Christ  given  us  in  baptism  our 
personal  self-conscious  life. 

WHAT  HOLY  COMMUNION  DOES 

After  this  has  been  done,  our  salvation  consists  in 
keeping  Christ  continually  in  our  hearts  day  by  day, 


48  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

and  day  by  day  our  hearts  will  be  fashioned  into 
Christ's  heart  as  we  feed  upon  Him.  Then  we  must 
not  let  our  anxieties  and  troubles  push  Christ  out, 
but  keep  Christ  in  and  he  will  push  the  troubles  and 
anxieties  out.  We  can  conquer  them  through  Christ, 
but  apart  from  Him  they  will  be  sure  to  conquer  us. 

How  often  have  we  thought  about  Christ  during  the 
past  week  ?  How  often  have  we  said  :  ''What  would 
Christ  have  me  do  in  this  matter?  How  would  he 
have  me  conduct  this  office?  How  would  I  act  if  I 
were  conscious  that  He  was  in  this  room  watching 
me?"  This  is  what  I  mean  by  keeping  Christ  in  our 
minds  and  hearts  in  order  that  we  may  incarnate  Him 
and  make  Him  our  life.  This  is  what  Holy  Com- 
munion does,  of  which  the  sacrament  Holy  Com- 
munion is  the  symbol.  When  we  live  in  this  way,  how 
much  easier  and  sweeter  life  becomes.  A  mysterious 
power  becomes  ours,  transfiguring  our  life  into  life 
eternal  by  the  living  God  incarnating  Himself  in  us. 

We  perhaps  wonder  that  our  Christian  life  is  the 
failure  that  it  is,  that  we  have  not  gotten  the  joy  and 
peace  and  hope  and  comfort  we  ought  to  have  gotten 
out  of  it.  It  is  no  wonder  to  me  and  ought  to  be  no 
wonder  to  you.  If  we  thought  no  more  about  our 
business  than  we  do  about  Christ,  and  kept  it  no  more 
in  our  minds  than  we  keep  Christ  in  our  minds,  our 
business  would  be  no  more  profitable  to  us  than  our 
Christian  life,  perhaps,  has  been. 

Of  course  we  are  masters  of  our  personal  life  and  can 
do  as  we  please.  The  service  of  God,  if  an  acceptable 
service,  must  be  one  of  perfect  freedom ;  but  what  I 
am  insisting  on  is,  that  if  we  choose  to  live  in  the  way 


THE  THREEFOLD   SACRAMENT  49 

I  have  described,  Christ  is  dead  to  us  and  we  are  dead 
to  Him;  and  then  we  complain  that  the  Christian 
Hfe  is  such  a  disappointing  thing,  when  in  reality  we 
know  very  little  about  it,  having  perhaps  never  lived 
it  one  month  in  our  whole  life.  We  have  not  been  in 
personal  communion  with  Christ  long  enough  for 
eternal  life  to  spring  up  in  us  in  all  of  its  glory ;  it  is 
a  feeble  flame  in  us ;  more  smoke  than  fire ;  more  cold 
than  heat ;  the  world  has  frozen  us  and  we  have  not 
stayed  with  Christ  long  enough  for  Him  to  thaw  us 
out  and  set  us  ablaze  with  Hfe  eternal.  The  trouble 
is  neither  with  our  Baptism  nor  Confirmation,  but 
our  Communion  with  God  has  lapsed,  or  we  have  made 
it  a  formal  thing. 

The  following  analogy  will  help  us  to  understand 
how  Holy  Communion  with  God  transforms  us  into 
His  nature.  There  are  certain  kinds  of  water  which 
have  the  power  of  turning  all  things  cast  into  them  into 
stone  if  they  stay  in  these  waters  long  enough.  What- 
ever is  cast  into  this  kind  of  water  loses  its  nature  and 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  elements  held  in  solution 
in  the  water.  If  it  is  a  log  of  wood,  it  loses  its  nature 
of  wood  and  instead  of  that  gets  a  body  of  stone.  As 
this  mineral  water  has  the  power  of  conquering  and 
subduing  the  nature  of  all  things  cast  into  it,  so  Christ 
imparts  His  nature  to  us,  if  we  come  to  Him  often 
enough  and  stay  with  Him  long  enough  in  Holy  Com- 
munion. The  log  of  wood  at  last  exclaims:  I  no 
longer  live  but  the  log  of  stone  lives  in  me,  as  St. 
Paul,  after  many  long  years  of  communion  with 
Christ,  said,  I  no  longer  live  but  Christ  lives  in  me. 

Summary :  Baptism,  Confirmation,  and  Holy  Com- 


50  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

miinion  is  the  threefold  Sacrament  of  Eternal  Life, 
which  is  given  unto  us  by  Baptism  into  God ;  which 
we  ratify  and  make  our  own  by  Repentance,  Faith,  and 
Obedience,  in  Confirmation;  which  we  maintain  and 
keep  everlastingly  by  Commimion  with  God  through 
Christ- Jesus  our  Lord  : 

"Who  with  our  life  and  life's  own  secret  joy 
Blend  like  some  sweet  beguiling  melody, 
So  sweet  we  know  not  we  are  list'ning  to  it 
Till  the  dilating  soul,  enrapt,  transfused 
Into  the  mighty  vision  passing,  swells 
Vast  to  Heaven." 


V 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

It  is  only  when  we  realize  that  the  outward  and  visible  universe 
is  the  revelation  of  the  inward  ,and  invisible  God  that  we  for  the 
first  time  enter  the  realm  of  religion;  and,  so,  the  Sacramental 
Teaching  of  the  Christian  Church  contains  the  very  essence  of  re- 
ligion. 

Question.  How  many  sacraments  hath  Christ  or- 
dained in  His  Church  ? 

Answer.  Two  only  as  generally  necessary  to  salva- 
tion; that  is  to  say,  Baptism,  and  The  Supper  of  the 
Lord. 

Question.  What  meanest  thou  by  this  word  "  sacra- 
ment "  ? 

Answer.  I  mean  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an 
inward  spiritual  grace  given  unto  us;  ordained  by 
Christ  Himself  as  a  means  whereby  we  receive  the 
same,  and  a  pledge  to  assure  us  thereof. 

Question.  How  many  parts  are  there  in  a  sacrament  ? 

Answer.  Two;  the  outward  and  visible  sign,  and 
the  inward  and  spiritual  grace. 

Question.  What  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign,  or 
form,  in  Baptism  ? 

Answer.  Water  wherein  the  person  is  baptized,  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost. 

SI 


52  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Question.   What  is  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace  ? 

Answer.  A  death  unto  sin,  and  a  new  birth  unto 
righteousness ;  for  being  by  nature  born  in  sin,  and 
children  of  wrath,  we  are  hereby  made  children  of 
grace. 

As  we  read  these  questions  and  answers  I  doubt 
very  much  if  they  mean  the  same  thing  to  any  two  of 
us.  Therefore,  in  this  lecture,  I  shall  try  to  clear 
away  some  of  the  difficulties,  and  explain  what  the 
Church  means  by  these  questions  and  answers.  We 
hear  many  people  saying  that  baptism  is  not  neces- 
sary for  salvation,  and  others  saying  that  it  is  neces- 
sary for  salvation.  Where  is  the  difficulty  and  what 
is  the  cause  of  this  difference  in  opinion  and  practice  ? 

You  will  find  that  when  people  differ,  and  honestly 
differ  for  ages,  about  fundamental  things,  it  generally 
turns  out  to  be  a  quarrel  about  words,  or  they  are  like 
the  two  knights  of  old  who  began  to  fight  about  the 
two  sides  of  the  shield,  one  saying  that  it  was  white 
and  the  other  saying  that  it  was  black.  During  the 
fight,  however,  they  changed  sides,  and  to  their  as- 
tonishment, the  one  that  said  it  was  black  saw  that 
it  was  white,  and  the  one  who  said  that  it  was  white 
saw  that  it  was  black,  and  as  soon  as  they  saw  this 
they  apologized  and  stopped  fighting.  Then  it  dawned 
upon  them  that  a  shield  has  two  sides,  one  of  which 
could  be  black  and  the  other  of  which  could  be 
white.  So  they  saw  that  each  was  right  and  each 
was  wrong. 

If  those  two  knights  had  changed  places  in  the 
beginning,  and  each  looked  at  it  from  the  other's  point 
of  view,  they  would  have  saved  themselves  hard  names 


THE   SACRAMENTAL  SYSTEM  53 

and  harder  blows,  and  gotten  at  the  truth  so  much 
quicker ;  for  the  only  way  of  seeing  the  truth  another 
man  sees  is  to  come  over  to  his  point  of  view  and 
look  at  the  matter  as  he  does.  So,  when  people  say 
that  baptism  is  not  essential  to  salvation,  I  always 
ask  the  person  what  he  means  by  salvation,  and  what 
he  means  by  baptism.  The  person  generally  says 
that  baptism  means  *'wet  the  person  with  water 
while  pronouncing  the  words  '  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost. '  "  To  which  I  reply :  "I  entirely  agree  with  you 
that  this  is  not  necessary  for  salvation,  and  if  bap- 
tism meant  this  to  me  and  nothing  more,  I  would 
not  turn  upon  my  heels  for  it."  So  my  friend  and 
myself  would,  so  far,  be  in  perfect  agreement,  and 
there  would  be  nothing  to  disagree  about  or  quarrel 
over. 

I  would  then  ask  him  to  look  at  it  from  my  point 
of  view.  Baptism  means  to  me  *'a  death  unto  sin 
and  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness,"  without  which, 
I  have  no  doubt,  you  will  agree  with  me  in  saying  that 
no  man  can  be  saved,  if  you  mean  by  salvation  a 
Christlike  Hfe.  Here,  again,  we  would  both  be  agreed 
and  have  nothing  to  differ  about,  for  we  would  both 
have  looked  at  both  sides  of  the  shield.  We  are  also 
agreed  that  a  man,  in  order  to  be  a  Christian,  must 
have  a  spiritual  birth  which  transcends  his  psychic 
birth,  for  as  long  as  man  is  under  the  dominion  of  his 
psychic  birth,  the  universal  experience  of  mankind,  as 
written  in  the  decay  and  corruption  of  Babylon,  Greece, 
and  Rome,  is  that  they  are  ''by  nature  born  in  sin 
and  children  of  wrath."  This  does  not  teach,  of 
course,  that  the  innocent  baby  is  a  sinner,  but  it  does 


54  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

teach  that,  if  his  psychic  nature  which  he  inherits  by 
his  natural  birth  is  not  transcended  by  a  spiritual 
birth,  which  will  dominate  and  control  his  psychic 
nature,  the  older  the  child  becomes  in  years  and 
mankind  in  civiHzation  the  more  corrupt  they  will 
become,  until,  at  last,  we  will  call  them  blessed  who 
rise  up  in  wrath  and  destroy  them. 

The  two  men  who  understood  this  better  than  all 
other  men  in  the  Roman  Empire  were  John  the  Bap- 
tist and  Jesus,  who  laid  down  their  lives  to  beget  into 
mankind  a  spiritual  birth  transcending  its  psychical 
birth.  The  movement  begun  by  the  one  was  carried 
forward  and  completed  by  the  other.  They  both 
saw  the  necessity  of  repentance,  but  Jesus  saw  that 
the  only  kind  of  repentance  which  can  really  save  is 
the  repentance  which  grows  out  of  a  spiritual  birth, 
and  they  both  used  the  symbols  of  baptism,  which,  in 
one  form  or  another,  have  been  used  perhaps  ever 
since  mankind  has  had  any  kind  of  religion.  Passing 
over  whatever  significance  baptism  may  have  had 
among  the  Gentiles,  we  will  briefly  analyze  the  mean- 
ing of  John's  baptism  "with  water  unto  repentance," 
and  Christian  baptism  ''into  the  name  of  the  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 

The  two  baptisms  are  kept  perfectly  distinct  and 
separate  by  John,  Our  Lord,  and  the  Apostles.  These 
are  the  words  used  by  John  when  he  instituted  his 
baptism:  ''I  indeed  baptize  you  with  water  unto  re- 
pentance, but  He  that  cometh  after  me  shall  baptize 
you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire."  Here  the 
two  baptisms  are  kept  perfectly  distinct.  Also  in 
these  last  parting  words  of  Jesus:    ''And  being  as- 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  55 

sembled  together  with  them,  commanded  them  not  to 
depart  from  Jerusalem,  but  wait  for  the  promise  of 
the  Father  which  ye  have  heard  of  me.  For  John 
truly  baptized  with  water,  but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  not  many  days  hence." 

You  see  that  these  baptisms  are  kept  as  distinct  as 
things  can  be,  but  because  people  persist  in  confus- 
ing the  two,  confusion  worse  confounded  prevails. 
Keep  also  clearly  in  mind  that  on  the  day  of  Pentecost 
the  sacrament  of  Christian  baptism  began. 

But  before  proceeding  further,  let  us  clearly  fix 
in  our  minds  the  relation  of  John  to  our  Saviour, 
and  His  baptism  to  Christian  baptism.  John  was  a 
preacher  of  righteousness,  and  it  was  his  mission  to 
gather  together  the  people  of  Israel  who  believed  that 
the  coming  of  the  Messiah  was  near  at  hand.  Those 
who  believed  his  message  were  baptized  with  water 
unto  repentance. 

The  outward  and  visible  sign  of  John's  baptism 
was  water,  and  the  inward  spiritual  grace  was  repent- 
ance. John  understood  and  did  his  work  well ;  for 
by  the  sacrament  of  his  preaching  and  baptism  with 
water,  he  did  exactly  what  he  intended  to  do  —  repro- 
duce himself  by  making  a  John  the  Baptist  out  of 
every  one  of  his  disciples  He  did  the  work  God  sent 
him  into  the  world  to  do. 

When  our  Saviour  began  His  work.  He  found  a  band 
of  disciples  ready  to  hand,  and  as  soon  as  He  began 
His  preaching,  the  inner  circle  of  John's  disciples, 
composed  of  Andrew  and  Peter  and  John  and  Thomas 
and  Nathaniel,  left  him  and  followed  Jesus.    They 


56  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

had  received  their  *'  baptism  of  water  unto  repentance," 
and  during  the  three  years  of  training  derived  from 
their  personal  contact  and  communion  with  our  in- 
carnate Lord,  they  were  prepared  to  receive  the 
''baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  fire"  which  John 
had  foretold.  On  the  day  of  Pentecost  they  received 
this  baptism. 

So  you  see  the  connection  of  the  two  men  and  their 
respective  baptisms.  It  was  the  purpose  of  both  to 
reproduce  and  multiply  themselves  in  their  disciples. 
The  one  by  baptism  of  water  unto  repentance  pre- 
pared the  disciples  to  receive  the  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  The  baptism  of  one  was  temporary  and  soon 
to  pass  away,  while  that  of  the  other  is  eternal  —  that 
is  how  every  man  is  made  a  partaker  of  the  life  of  God. 

In  order  for  us  to  see  the  eternal  and  divine  sig- 
nificance of  Christian  baptism,  let  us  divide  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  into  its  three  Hfe  periods.  Go  back 
with  me  to  the  time  when  this  world  was  hurled 
93,000,000  miles  into  space  and  began  its  revolutions 
around  the  sun,  a  seething  mass  of  fire,  until  it  cooled 
into  such  a  condition  that  the  oceans  could  be  gathered 
into  its  shrunken  sides,  and  the  rivers  were  flowing 
from  the  mountains  to  the  seas.  When  it  had  suffi- 
ciently cooled  to  become  a  trinity  of  solid,  Hquid, 
and  gas  —  earth,  sea,  and  sky  —  God,  by  the  direct 
action  of  His  Spirit  upon  mother  earth,  evolved  the 
lowest  forms  of  hfe.  Here  begins  the  first  period  with 
the  introduction  of  Hfe.  Then  life  rose  higher  and 
higher  as  the  result  of  the  direct  and  continuous  action 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  these  lower  and  succeeding 
higher  forms  of  life,  until  He  introduced  psychic  life, 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  57 

called  man.  And  God  said  let  him  have  dominion 
over  the  world.  Here  begins  the  second  period  with 
the  advent  of  man. 

The  second  period  is  continued  by  psychic  man 
reproducing  himself  and  peopling  the  world  with  his 
order  of  life.  Through  long  ages  this  psychic  type  of 
life  went  on  developing  through  the  rise  and  fall 
of  empires,  decay  of  civilizations,  wars  and  rumors  of 
wars,  in  the  midst  of  tears,  blood,  agonies,  and  heart 
breaks  —  as  in  a  roaring  fiery  furnace  —  until  at  last 
He  appeared,  to  produce  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  had 
been  toiling  through  all  creative  epochs  with  groans 
which  cannot  be  uttered.  At  last  He,  the  incarnation 
of  God,  stood  upon  the  earth  and  said  to  the  storm- 
tossed  world,  ^'  Peace,  be  still."  In  Him  we  find 
not  only  a  material  and  a  psychical,  but  a  spiritual 
birth,  which  no  man  before  Him  possessed,  so  that 
with  Him  ended  the  second  life-period  of  the  world's 
history,  and  with  Him  began  the  third  and  last  period 
of  its  history.  God  said  to  the  first  Adam:  ''Have 
dominion  over  the  earth";  but  of  the  second  Adam 
it  is  said :  ''All  power  in  Heaven  and  earth  is  given 
unto  me." 

And  why  does  He  appear  upon  the  earth?  To 
mock  us  with  His  power.  His  wisdom,  and  His  sinless- 
ness?  Only  to  be  worshipped  in  His  unattainable 
Czar-like  grandeur?  His  life  and  His  acts  do  not  so 
teach.  If  there  ever  was  a  man  who  walked  the 
earth,  whose  sole  purpose  was  to  communicate  not  so 
much  what  he  had,  but  to  communicate  Himself  to  us 
and  reproduce  Himself  in  us,  it  is  Jesus. 

Imagine  a  physician  entering  one  of  the  wards  of  a 


58  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

large  hospital,  and  as  he  stands  before  the  halt,  the 
lame,  and  the  blind,  they  turn  their  weary  pain- 
crucified  eyes  upon  him  and  say :  ''Why  standest  thou 
before  us  in  all  the  glory  of  thy  perfect  health  to 
mock  us  ?  Depart !  The  glory  of  thy  perfection  is 
our  torture  !"  And  he  repHes :  ''I  have  not  come  to 
mock  you,  my  friends,  by  showing  you  perfect  man- 
hood and  health.  I  have  not  come  to  condemn  you, 
but  to  save  you  by  making  my  health  your  health. 
I  have  come  to  share  with  you  your  sickness  and  in- 
firmities in  order  that  you  may  share  with  me  my 
health  and  perfection."  I  leave  you  to  imagine  the 
picture  of  indescribable  joy  and  worship  which  would 
take  place  in  that  hospital. 

Such  is  the  relation  which  Jesus  holds  to  the  world. 
He  is  not  come  to  condemn  us,  but  that  we  might 
have  life,  and  have  it  more  abundantly.  Picture  now 
in  your  minds  all  hurtian  life  born  in  this  world  by 
natural  birth  —  children  of  the  first  Adam,  the  psychic 
man  —  and  put  all  these  on  one  side ;  contrasted  with 
these  and  over  on  the  other  side,  Jesus,  another  and 
higher  order  of  life,  the  spiritual  man  who  is  the  in- 
carnation of  God ;  and  that  it  is  His  purpose  to  re- 
produce Himself  in  all  children  born  of  Adam,  so  that 
He  will  dwell  in  them  and  they  in  Him.  How  is  this 
done  ?  The  Church's  answer  has  always  been  — 
sacramentally  !  Here  at  once  arises  the  necessity  that 
we  clearly  understand  what  the  Church  means  by  a 
sacrament,  before  we  can  begin  to  appreciate  the 
necessity  and  wisdom  of  the  Church's  answer.  Long 
ago  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  truth  to  be  a 
religious  truth  must  be  a  universal  truth,  and  after 


THE   SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  59 

giving  you  the  definition  of  a  sacrament,  I  will  show 
you  that  this  world  in  which  we  live  is  a  sacramental 
world  from  center  to  circumference. 

The  definition  of  a  sacrament  is  as  follows :  (i)  It 
is  an  outward  and  visible  sign;  (2)  of  an  inward  and 
spiritual  grace;  (3)  this  outward  and  visible  sign  is  the 
means  whereby  we  receive  the  inward  and  spiritual 
grace. 

The  first  illustration  I  will  use  is  that  of  a  watch. 
It  is  an  outward  and  visible  thing,  but  by  means  of 
this  outward  and  visible  thing  we  are  made  partakers 
of  something  which  no  one  ever  saw  or  can  see  —  time. 
By  means  of  your  watch  you  know  what  time  of  day 
it  is,  and  without  your  watch,  or  some  other  sacra- 
ment of  time,  you  cannot  do  this.  In  a  watch  you 
have  an  illustration  of  what  the  Church  means  by  a 
sacrament. 

The  outward  and  visible  thing  called  your  watch  is 
the  means  by  which  we  receive  knowledge  of  the  in- 
ward and  invisible  mental  thing  called  time.  Thus 
these  sacraments  called  watches  become  the  regulators 
by  which  we  go  to  bed,  get  up  in  the  morning,  eat 
our  meals,  go  to  church,  and  to  business ;  are  born, 
live,  marry,  and  die  by.  Destroy  this  sacrament  of 
time,  and  you  would  upset  every  railroad  in  the 
United  States ;  and  if  you  were  out  at  sea  for  a  long 
period  during  which  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  were 
obscured  by  a  fog,  you  would  lose  what  time  it  is 
altogether ;  and  then  destroy  the  natural  sacraments 
of  time  —  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars  —  and 
there  would  be  no  time,  for  time  is  the  measure  of 
motion.     These  outward  and  visible  signs  turn  out  to 


6o  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

be  wonderful  things  after  all,  beneath  which  we  hear 
the  moving  of  the  spirit's  wings. 

I  take  a  savage  with  me  into  one  of  the  marvellous 
Cathedrals  of  Europe  and  show  him  one  of  the  won- 
derful creations  of  some  inspired  artist's  brain.  It  is 
the  wonderful  painting  of  a  mother  and  a  child.  To 
him  it  is  paint  and  sorry  stuff,  or  perhaps  an  idol  to 
be  worshipped,  but  to  us  it  is  a  sacrament,  an  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  our  Lord  and  His  Mother. 
So  all  painting  is  a  sacrament,  an  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  the  inward  and  invisible  creative  truth  in  the 
mind  of  God  and  in  the  mind  of  man. 

Sculpture  is  a  sacrament.  I  go  into  some  art 
gallery,  and  see  carved  in  stone  the  statue  of  a  father 
and  his  sons  wrapped  in  the  coils  of  some  serpents  from 
the  sea.  It  is  an  outward  and  visible  sign,  but  it  is 
more  than  that.  It  tells  the  story  of  the  whole  his- 
tory of  man  from  the  beginning  of  his  struggles  with 
the  destructive  forces  of  the  earth  and  sea,  which 
sooner  or  later  overpower  us  and  lay  our  physical  life 
low  in  the  dust.  Not  only  in  this  instance,  but  in  all 
cases,  sculpture  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  that 
which  goes  on  in  the  artist's  spirit  behind  the  veil  of 
flesh  and  blood. 

I  can  well  imagine  this  conversation  taking  place 
between  Captain  John  Smith  and  one  of  Powhatan's 
warriors.  Captain  Smith  is  sitting  beneath  one  of 
Virginia's  mighty  oaks,  reading  one  of  the  English 
classics.  The  Indian  warrior  asks  him  what  he  is 
doing,  and  Captain  Smith  replies:  "I  am  listening  to 
a  mighty  man  talk  who  lived  many  years  ago  across 
the  sea  whence  I  came."    The  Indian  in  amazement 


^THE   SACRAMENTAL    SYSTEM  6i 

says,  "How  is  that?"  Captain  Smith  points  to  the 
book  and  says,  ''He  is  talking  to  me  out  of  this  book 
by  means  of  these  little  signs  and  scratches  you  see 
here,"  and  the  Indian  in  a  grunt  of  incredulity  leaves 
him;  but  however  incredulous  that  Indian  may  be, 
literature  is  the  sacrament  through  which  the  spirit  of 
God  and  the  mighty  dead  do  speak  to  us  from  beyond 
the  stars. 

When  you  come  to  think  how  the  spirits  Moses, 
Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah  communicate  their  thoughts  to 
us  by  means  of  a  few  marks,  it  is  no  more  mysterious, 
but  is  one  with  the  central  fact  and  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity, that  by  means  of  water  and  blood  God  be- 
came flesh,  and  that  we  by  means  of  the  same  water 
and  blood  are  regenerated  in  baptism,  for  the  two 
stand  or  fall  together.  The  incredible  wonder  would 
be  on  the  other  hand,  for  we  never  did  and  never  can 
communicate  with  one  another  otherwise  than  sacra- 
mentally.  There  you  are  sitting  in  your  seats  and 
here  I  am  lecturing  to  you,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
my  spirit  is  in  communion  with  your  spirits.  How  ? 
Through  the  sacrament  of  sight  and  sound  —  nothing 
but  a  vibration  of  air  —  and  yet  through  the  sacra- 
ment of  eye  and  ear  and  vibration  of  sound  the  orator's 
spirit  passes  into  his  audience  and  makes  them  shout, 
laugh,  and  weep  as  one  body  with  himself,  and  yet 
many  say  that  it  is  a  relic  of  magic  and  superstition 
to  think  that  God  uses  the  sacrament  of  water  and 
blood,  through  which  he  creates  all  psychic  life  born 
in  this  world,  as  the  means  of  imparting  to  us  spiritual 
Kfe!  Try  to  live  without  drinking  water  and  eating 
bread  and  you  will  soon  find  that  they  are  the  God- 


62  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

ordained  channels  through  which  the  life  of  the  spirit 
is  maintained  in  this  world. 

My  body  is  the  sacrament  of  my  spirit,  the  means 
through  which  I  am  able  to  communicate  with  you. 
Body  isolates  my  spirit  from  your  spirit,  making  each 
of  us  individuals.  Through  the  sacrament  of  our  five 
senses  we  know  and  love  one  another.  Destroy  these, 
and  then  the  silver  cord  is  loosed  and  the  golden  bowl 
is  broken,  and  we  sigh, 

"Oh  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still." 

Religious  life  without  sacraments  is  not  only  im- 
possible, but  all  life  would  be  impossible.  Destroy 
God's  sacrament  of  nature  and  we  never  v/ould  have 
been.  When  we  rise  to  the  dignity  of  the  majesty  of 
the  meaning  of  the  Church's  sacramental  teaching,  we 
look  for  God  and  life,  infinite  and  finite,  never  on  the 
outside  of  anything  but  always  on  the  inside  of  every- 
thing. On  the  outside  it  is  always  mechanics  — 
matter  and  motion  —  the  outward  and  visible  sign 
of  the  inward  and  invisible  spirit,  mind,  and  thought 
of  God  and  man.  The  astronomers  may  sweep  the 
physical  heavens  and  never  find  the  spirit  of  God, 
otherwise  than  as  the  outward  and  visible  revelation 
of  His  Creative  Spirit,  as  suns,  moons,  stars,  and 
milky  ways,  revealed  there  since  creation's  dawn.  In 
like  manner  you  can  dissect  the  body  of  man  and 
never  find  spirit  as  spirit,  but  only  as  spirit  sacra- 
mentally  reveals  itself  through  body,  and  no  sensible 
man  believes  to-day  that  you  ever  could.  It  is  only 
when  we  do  realize  that  the  outward  and  visible  uni- 


THE    SACRAMENTAL   SYSTEM  6$ 

verse  is  the  revelation  of  the  inward  and  invisible  Spirit 
of  God  that  we  for  the  first  time  enter  the  realm  of 
religion;  and  so,  the  sacramental  teaching  of  the 
Church  contains  the  very  essence  of  religion,  as  Cole- 
ridge illustrated  when  he  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  looked 
upon  the  glaciers  of  Mt.  Blanc  and  sang :  — 

"Torrents,  methinks,  that  heard  a  mighty  voice 
And  stopped  amidst  their  maddest  plunge  ! 
Motionless  torrents  !     Silent  cataracts  ! 
Who  made  you  glorious  as  the  gates  of  Heaven 
Beneath  the  keen  full  moon  ?     Who  bade  the  sun 
Clothe  you  with  rainbows  ?     Who,  with  living  flower3 
Of  loveliest  blue,  spread  garlands  at  your  feet  ? 
God  !     Let  the  torrents  like  the  shout  of  nations 
Answer  !     And  let  the  ice  plains  echo  God  ! 
God  !     Sing,  ye  meadow  streams,  with  gladsome  voices! 
And  they  too  have  a  voice,  yon  piles  of  snow, 
And  in  their  perilous  fall  shall  thunder  God  !" 

But  however  much  nature  is  the  sacrament  of  God, 
the  outward  and  visible  means  through  which  we  reach 
the  inward  and  invisible  Spirit  of  God,  not  there  do 
we  find  the  highest  revelation  and  express  image  of 
God.  It  is  only  when  we  look  into  the  face  of  the 
Son  of  Man  and  Hsten  to  Him,  saying,  ''He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  that  we  see  the 
perfect  outward  objective  revelation  of  God.  The 
man  Jesus  is  in  Himself  the  perfect  definition  of  the 
sacrament  of  the  Church  because  He  is  the  outward 
means  whereby  we  are  made  partakers  of  the  in- 
visible Spirit  of  God. 

One  more  analogy,  in  which  I  will  compare  the 
sacramental  system  of  the  school  with  that  of  the 
Church,  and  I  will  close  this  lecture.  Imagine  a  per- 
fect and  ideal  school  in  which  you  have  a  perfect  and 


64  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

ideal  teacher  who  is  the  incarnation  of  all  knowledge. 
A  child  enters  that  school  in  order  that  he  may  become 
the  incarnation  of  the  same  knowledge  that  his  per- 
fect and  ideal  teacher  is.  How  is  it  possible  that  the 
knowledge  which  the  teacher  possesses  can  pass  from 
him  and  become  the  vital  possession  of  the  pupil? 
The  only  possible  means  of  communion  between  them 
is  outward  and  visible  signs,  the  sacramental  system 
from  beginning  to  end,  you  see.  Through  the  sacra- 
ment of  sound,  spoken  words ;  through  the  sacrament 
of  written  words,  books;  through  the  sacrament  of 
the  five  senses,  the  spirit  of  the  teacher  passes  into 
and  becomes  the  vital  and  living  possession  and  self  of 
the  pupil. 

So  you  have  the  school  and  books  and  teacher  upon 
which  the  pupil  sacramen tally  feeds.  In  the  place  of 
that  ideal  teacher  substitute  Christ,  for  the  school  the 
Church,  and  for  initiation  into  the  school  baptism, 
and  the  analogy  is  complete. 


VI 

BAPTISM  A  SPIRITUAL  BIRTH 

I  DO  not  know  how  I  can  better  explain  what  bap- 
tism in  the  New  Testament  means  than  by  reproduc- 
ing the  substance  of  a  conversation  which  I  had  many 
years  ago  with  a  very  intelHgent  woman  in  New  York, 
and  repeated  some  days  later  to  a  Baptist  minister 
on  board  of  a  steamer  sailing  from  New  York  to 
Savannah. 

The  woman  to  whom  I  refer  said  to  me:  "I  want 
to  have  a  talk  withyou  about  baptism,  as  I  have  chil- 
dren for  whose  religious  training  I  am  responsible, 
and  it  is  my  heart's  desire  that  they  shall  grow  up  to 
be  Christian  men.  My  mother  and  I  cannot  agree 
about  it.  She  thinks  that  baptism  is  necessary  to 
make  them  Christians,  and  that  children  who  die  un- 
baptized  are  lost.  My  mother  is  old-fashioned,  but 
one  of  the  best  Christians  I  ever  knew,  and  I  am  very 
anxious  for  us  to  think  alike  about  religion.  I  have 
come  to  look  at  things  more  through  my  father's  eyes, 
who  is  also  one  of  the  best  Christians  I  ever  knew, 
and  yet  he  was  unbaptized.  If  I  could  have  my 
children  grow  up  into  men  like  him,  baptized  or  un- 
baptized, I  would  say:  'Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy 
servant  depart  in  peace.'  You  see  how  the  matter 
stands.  Can  you  help  me  ?  " 
F  6s 


66  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

I  saw  at  a  glance  how  the  matter  stood  with  her, 
and  that,  unless  she  could  see  a  deeper  and  truer  in- 
terpretation of  baptism  than  she  had  been  taught, 
she  would  be  lost  to  the  organized  forces  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  that  it  might  take  a  life  time  for  her  to 
discover  how  much  she  would  lose  by  her  action. 

A  few  weeks  later  on  a  voyage  from  New  York  to 
Savannah  I  met  the  Baptist  minister  to  whom  I  have 
referred,  and  again  the  matter  of  a  deeper  and  truer 
interpretation  of  baptism  was  forced  upon  me  in  a 
most  practical  way,  this  time  in  connection  with 
Church  unity.  The  Baptist  minister  at  once  began 
by  saying:  ''Yes,  the  subject  of  Church  unity  is  in 
the  air,  is  the  will  of  Christ  as  expressed  in  His  last 
prayer  with  His  disciples,  and  is  the  live  burning 
question  of  the  day;  but  there  never  will  be  any 
organic  union  between  your  church  and  mine  until 
we  can  come  to  some  common  agreement  about  a  good 
many  questions  upon  which  at  the  present  time  we 
are  hopelessly  divided." 

"Mention  one  of  them,"  I  said.  "To  begin  with," 
he  at  once  replied,  "you  know  that  baptism  separates 
us  from  all  other  Christians.  For  instance  your 
Church  teaches  baptismal  regeneration,  which  means 
that  a  man  is  made  a  Christian  by  baptism,  without 
which  no  man  can  be  saved.  On  the  contrary  we 
teach  believers^  baptism,  which  means  that  no  one 
ought  to  be  baptized  until  he  personally  accepts 
Christ  as  his  Saviour.  We  say  become  a  Christian 
first,  then  we  will  baptize  you  and  make  you  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Church.  We  baptize  only  Christians ;  you 
baptize  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  and  claim 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  67 

that  the  act  of  baptism  makes  one  a  Christian ;  while 
we  teach  that  repentance,  regeneration,  and  conver- 
sion make  one  a  Christian.  So  you  see  that  we  are 
hopelessly  divided." 

^'So  it  seems  that  we  are  hopelessly  divided,"  I 
said,  "but  only  seems  and  not  in  reality,  as  you  will 
soon  see.  The  difficulty  about  all  these  questions 
grows  out  of  (i)  a  faulty  analysis  of  how  one  is  made 
a  Christian;  (2)  the  definitions  of  words.  When  we 
shall  have  gone  into  these  two  points  fully,  the  mists 
and  alienations  of  centuries  of  Christian  misunder- 
standing will  melt  away  in  the  clear  Hght  of  a  fuller 
knowledge." 

*'To  begin  with  the  definitions  of  words,"  I  said, 
*Hell  me  what  you  mean  by  baptism?"  "Immer- 
sion is  baptism,"  he  said.  "Nothing  more?"  I  said. 
"What  do  you  mean,"  he  said.  "Do  you  not  baptize 
into  the  name  of  some  one?"  I  said.  "Oh,  yes;  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,"  he 
said.  "The  reason  why  I  have  called  your  attention 
to  the  name  into  which  we  baptize,"  I  said,  "is  because 
it  is  one  of  the  distinctions  between  Christian  baptism 
and  John's  baptism.  Christian  baptism  is  into  the 
name  of  God,  while  John's  baptism  is  not  into  the 
name  of  anything.  But  as  I  was  once  a  Baptist  my- 
self I  know  that  you  have  left  out  one  of  the  essen- 
tials of  Baptism  as  it  was  taught  me  when  I  was  a 
child,  for  when  I  was  a  child,  I  was  taught  Apostoli- 
cal Succession  as  one  of  the  essentials  of  Christian 
baptism." 

"You  are  entirely  mistaken,"  he  said;  "the  Baptist 
Church  has  never  taught  any  such  doctrine  as  that, 


68  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

for  it  has  always  protested  against  the  doctrine  of 
Apostolical  Succession  in  the  Episcopal  Church  and 
Infallibility  of  the  Pope  in  the  Catholic  Church. 
We  teach  that  any  number  of  individual  Christians, 
if  they  teach  the  true  doctrines  of  Christ,  can  form  a 
Church  any  day  and  anywhere  they  please.  We  are 
individualists;  we  beUeve  in  the  personal  liberty  of 
the  individual  to  do  his  own  thinking  without  asking 
any  let,  leave,  or  hindrance  from  My  Lord  Bishop  or 
Infallible  Pope." 

"You  think  that  you  are  very  liberal,"  I  said, 
"but  in  reality  you  are  not.  You  claim  to  allow  per- 
fect liberty  of  thought  to  the  individual,  but  you  do 
this  to  no  further  extent  than  he  thinks  your  thoughts. 
The  moment  he  begins  to  exercise  that  liberty  of 
thought  you  theoretically  grant  him,  and  he  reaches 
conclusions  other  than  yours,  you  turn  him  out  of 
your  Church.  You  claim  to  know  the  true  doctrines 
of  Christ,  and  that  your  Church,  and  your  Church 
only,  teaches  the  true  doctrines  of  Christ.  How  can 
you  possibly  do  this  unless  you  are  infallible?  And 
you  claim  Apostolical  Succession;  for  you  claim  that 
your  Church  is  the  only  Church  that  teaches  the 
truth  exactly  as  the  Apostles  taught  it,  and  your 
Church  organization  is  the  only  one  exactly  like  the 
Apostolic  Church. 

"Part  of  your  infallible  teaching  is  that  baptism  is 
(i)  immersion,  (2)  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  (3)  by 
a  man  who  has  been  immersed  by  a  man  who  has 
been  immersed  in  succession  by  a  man  from  the 
Apostles  back  to  John  the  Baptist.  And  then  you  at 
once  admit  that  all  this  infallible  teaching  is  not 


BAPTISM  A   SPIRITUAL  BIRTH  69 

worth  a  straw  because  it  is  not  necessary  for  salva- 
tion. The  life,  nerve,  and  center  of  the  Baptist 
Church,  as  you  have  just  admitted,  is  the  doctrine  of 
believers^  baptism,  and  in  this  doctrine  you  hold  and 
teach  Apostolical  Succession;  and  not  only  this  but 
you  claim  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  because  you  will 
not  have  fellowship  with  any  body  of  Christians  who 
do  not  teach  your  true  doctrine  of  Christ. 

'^  Without  controversy  let  us  clearly  recognize  the 
fact  that  any  body  of  Christians  who  call  themselves 
the  Christian  Church  must  claim  Apostolical  Succes- 
sion and  Infallibility,  and  teach  both,  unless  they  wish 
to  commit  suicide.  We  all  must  claim  for  ourselves 
succession  from  the  Apostles  because  the  Christian 
Church  must  be  as  old  as  the  Apostles.  It  is  a 
matter  of  historic  fact  that  every  body  of  Christians 
who  are  in  existence  to-day  do  derive  their  organiza- 
tion and  teaching  from  the  Church  founded  by  the 
Apostles.  I  am  not  arguing  for  any  theory  of  Apos- 
tolical Succession,  but  for  the  fact. 

*' Also  every  separate  body  of  Christians  in  the  world 
do  claim  and  teach  infallibility  when  they  set  up  a 
Church  of  their  own  and  claim  to  know  and  teach, 
and  they  only,  the  true  doctrine  of  Christ;  and  any 
Church  begins  to  disintegrate  the-  moment  that  it 
begins  to  doubt  its  infallibility.  And  because  the 
Churches  of  to-day  are  doubting  their  infaUibility 
they  are  disintegrating  and  losing  their  power.  The 
whole  question  of  Church  unity  consists  in  finding 
again  an  infallibility  which  will  convince  not  only  a 
sect,  but  the  whole  body  Christendom,  of  an  infalli- 
bility which  is  really  infallible.     No  Christian  can  have 


70  THE    CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

any  objection  to  the  doctrine  of  Apostolical  Succes- 
sion and  Infallibility  as  such.  In  fact  you  and 
I  are  in  search  of  both;  but  what  we  wish  is  some- 
thing genuine,  objective,  and  real;  not  a  partial  and 
defective  infalHbility  growing  out  of  our  own  subjec- 
tive individuality.  In  other  words  we  are  in  search 
of  the  truth ;  and  the  truth  is  infallible.  The  infalli- 
bility we  are  in  search  of  is  an  infallibility  which 
squares  with  all  the  facts  of  life  in  the  universe  of 
God,  man,  and  nature.  This  is  the  test  to  which  any 
infallibility  which  endures  must  continually  be  sub- 
jected. It  must  satisfy  all  the  tests,  both  of  the 
objective  facts  as  well  as  the  subjective  experiences  of 
life. 

''Let  us  now  bring  your  Apostolical  Succession  and 
Infallibility  to  the  trial  of  this  test.  Would  you 
accept  a  person  whom  I  would  immerse  in  the 
name  of  the  Trinity  of  God  as  a  member  of  your 
Church  without  rebaptizing  him?"  ''I  would," 
he  said,  ''but  a  great  many  Baptists  would  not,  for 
this  is  one  of  the  questions  on  which  our  churches 
are  divided."  "Very  well,  then,"  I  said,  "we  will 
not  discuss  this  feature  further  than  to  suggest  that 
you,  and  the  men  like  you,  who  are  giving  your 
Church  a  truer  conception  of  baptism,  whether  you 
reahze  it  or  not,  are  doing  an  absolutely  necessary 
work  in  reuniting  a  divided  Christendom. 

"But  you  consider  immersion,  or  wetting  one  all 
over  with  water,  absolutely  essential  to  baptism?" 
"Yes,"  he  said,  "there  is  no  baptism  without  immer- 
sion." "But  you  do  not  consider  baptism  essential 
to  salvation  ?  "  I  said.    "No;  baptism  is  not  an  essen- 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  71 

tial  to  salvation,"  he  said.  ''If  a  person  tells  me  upon 
his  death-bed  that  he  has  repented  of  his  sins,  and 
accepts  Christ  for  his  Saviour,  that  man  is  saved  whether 
he  is  baptized  or  not."  ''Then,"  I  said,  "why  baptize 
anybody?"  "Simply  because  Jesus  commanded  it," 
he  said. 

"My  brother,  it  is  not  fair  nor  satisfactory  to  answer 
me  like  that  in  a  discussion  of  this  kind,"  I  said.  "For 
wx  are  now  trying  to  find  out  what  Jesus  commanded, 
and  why  He  commanded  it.  Furthermore,  let  me  here 
say  once  and  for  all  that  whatever  you  and  I  beheve 
about  the  Bible,  people  to-day  as  a  whole  no  longer 
believe  anything  simply  because  Jesus,  the  Bible,  or 
the  Church  teaches  it.  People  to-day  beHeve  noth- 
ing upon  authority  alone,  but  only  that  which  they 
believe  can  undoubtedly  be  shown  to  be  a  fact.  They 
believe  only  that  which  they  believe  squares  with  the 
facts  of  life,  which  knowledge  of  the  facts,  they  claim,  is 
as  well  known  to  them  as  to  the  writers  of  the  Bible, 
and  enables  them  to  test  the  infallibility  of  the  dogmas 
of  Christianity,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  Bible.  Access 
to  the  facts  of  rehgion,  they  claim,  is  as  open  to 
them  as  to  Moses  and  to  Jesus.  The  doors  which  they 
opened  have  never  been  shut,  so  that  any  one  who 
wishes,  and  has  the  necessary  training  and  ability, 
can  enter  and  test  the  facts  of  religion  as  in  any  other 
department  of  knowledge;  they  say,  by  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them.  Anything  that  is  not  neces- 
sary to  produce  a  Christlike  life  must  at  once  be  ruled 
out  as  an  essential  of  the  Christian  religion." 

"Let  us  now  accept  this,  their  point  of  view,  and 
bring  the  New  Testament  teaching  of  baptism  to  the 


72  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

same  test  that  is  applied  to  any  teaching  of  science;  as, 
for  instance,  that  water  is  H2O,  and  is  a  necessary  fac- 
tor of  embodied  Hfe  on  this  earth. 

"I  am  quite  sure  that  when  Jesus  taught  the  Church, 
or,  if  you  please,  when  the  Church  under  the  guidance 
of  the  spirit  of  truth  —  it  makes  no  difference  to  me 
who  first  said,  2  plus  2  equals  4,  since  it  is  the  truth  — 
began  to  baptize  every  creature  into  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  taught 
that  this  positive,  absolute,  universal  command  to 
baptize,  when  we  understand  it  as  those  who  insti- 
tuted it  understood  it,  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  every  creature.  This  positive  command  of 
Jesus,  according  to  your  definition  of  it,  you  take  upon 
yourself  to  break  in  certain  cases  because  you  do  not 
understand  what  it  means,  and  say  that  it  is  not 
necessary  for  salvation  in  any  case  because  the  person 
is  saved  before  he  is  baptized.  This  ought  to  make 
you  doubt  that  your  definition  of  baptism  is  the  correct 
definition  because  it  has,  as  the  mathematicians  say, 
reduced  this  command  of  Jesus  to  a  reductio  ad  absur- 
dum,  your  definition  of  it  being  nothing  more  than 
wetting  one  all  over  with  water  in  the  name  of  the 
trinity.  Jesus  and  the  Christian  Church  mean  more 
than  this  by  baptism;  therefore,  I  sympathize  with 
your  logic  which  makes  you  in  certain  cases  set  aside 
the  command  to  baptize,  and  say  that  it  is  not  neces- 
sary in  any  case,  because  you  have  imported  into  the 
meaning  of  the  word  '  baptism '  an  unscriptural 
meaning. 

"Take  these  words  of  Jesus  (St.  Luke  12:50): 
^But  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with  and  how 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  73 

am  I  straitened  until  it  be  accomplished!'  Jesus  in 
these  words  certainly  has  no  reference  to  baptism  as 
you  have  defined  it.  He  is  pointing  to  that  agony  of 
spirit,  mind,  and  body  He  is  to  undergo  in  the  cruci- 
fixion, that  cup  which  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane 
He  thrice  prayed  might  be  taken  from  Him.  Again 
in  these  words :  '  For  truly  John  baptized  with  water, 
but  ye  shall  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost  not  many 
days  hence.'  This  was  certainly  baptism,  but  not  a 
drop  of  water  was  used.  The  baptism  of  John,  as 
every  one  knows,  was  not  Christian  baptism.  On  the 
day  of  Pentecost  the  Apostles  received  their  Christian 
baptism,  when  the  tongues  of  fire  rested  upon  them 
and  they  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit." 

^'Ah,"  said  he,  "I  begin  now  to  see  what  you  mean 
by  baptism  —  baptism  of  the  Spirit !  Baptism  with- 
out water  is  certainly  new  and  strange  doctrine  to  be 
kept  out  of  the  Baptist  fold.  I  admit  that  there  can 
be  a  certain  kind  of  baptism  without  water.  There- 
fore I  am  exceedingly  anxious  to  hear  your  interpre- 
tation of  John  3:4,'  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water 
and  the  Spirit  he  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  God.'  " 

'^My  dear  brother,  this  passage  teaches  that  hap- 
tism  is  a  spiritual  birth;  therefore  it  is  an  exceedingly 
unfortunate  passage  for  your  definition  of  baptism, 
(i)  You  have  said  that  baptism  is  not  necessary  for 
salvation ;  this  passage  says  that  it  is.  (2)  You  have 
said  that  one  must  be  a  Christian  before  he  is  baptized. 
This  passage  says  that  spiritual  birth  is  the  essence  of 
baptism  —  is  baptism  par  excellence.  Does  not  being 
^born  of  the  Spirit'  make  one  a  Christian?  And  is 
not  baptism  necessary  for  salvation  since  spiritual 


74  THE    CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

hirth  is  baptism?  Every  Christian  believes  and 
teaches  this  without  exception  —  that  a  spiritual 
birth  transcending  our  psychic  birth  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  make  one  a  Christian.  What  necessary 
factors  must  combine  in  unity  to  produce  this  spiritual 
birth?  What  three  necessary  factors  do  combine  in 
unity  to  produce  our  material,  psychic,  and  spiritual 
births?  Blood,  water,  and  spirit  combined  in  unity 
produce  our  natural  birth.  Every  child  is  born  of 
water,  the  blood  of  human  parents,  and  the  Spirit  of 
God  —  the  three  in  unity.  But  to  enter  the  kingdom 
of  Heaven  we  must  be  born  again.  This  second  birth, 
this  spiritual  birth,  is  also  born  of  water,  blood,  and 
spirit  —  the  regenerating  water  of  nature,  the  regenerat- 
ing blood  of  Jesus,  the  regenerating  Spirit  of  God  — 
leave  out  any  one  of  these  factors,  and  the  spiritual 
birth  of  man,  which  Jesus  calls  baptism,  would  be  an 
impossibihty." 

"This  is  all  so  new  to  me,"  said  he,  ''that  you  will 
have  to  go  slow.  The  Churches  have  made  baptism 
mean  nothing  more  than  wetting  one  with  water  for 
so  long  that  you  are  going  to  have  a  hard  time  in 
getting  them  to  see  what  the  New  Testament  means 
by  baptism  as  you  have  interpreted  it." 

''But,"  I  said,  "this  is  not  my  interpretation.  It  is 
the  interpretation  of  the  Universal  Christian  Church, 
as  enshrined  in  its  formularies  of  the  sacrament  of 
baptism." 

"I  see  that  you  make  born  of  water  one  thing,  and 
born  of  the  Spirit  another  thing.  What  is  the  differ- 
ence ?  " 

"They  are  in  reality  one  birth,  as  I  will  show  you 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  75 

later  on,"  I  replied,  "but  before  we  begin  with  this 
let  me  suggest  that,  as  you  understand  the  sacrament 
of  baptism,  this  passage  has  not  the  slightest  reference 
to  it  at  all,  because  you  have  not  the  faintest  idea  that 
baptism  is  a  spiritual  birth.  When  we  understand  this 
passage  as  Nicodemus  could  only  have  understood  it, 
we  will  for  the  first  time  begin  to  be  drawn  together." 

"Wait  a  minute,"  said  he;  "you  have  used  the  ex- 
pression sacrament  of  baptism.  What  do  you  mean 
by  it?"  "I  will  explain  what  sacrament  means  later 
on,  but  not  just  now,"  I  said.  "The  thing  in  hand  is 
the  interpretation  of  this  passage.  Remember  that 
Jesus  startled  Nicodemus  by  saying,  'Except  a  man 
be  born  again  he  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  God.^ 
Nicodemus  said,  '  How  can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is 
old?  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  the  people  who 
teach  reincarnation  are  right  ?  That  a  man  can  enter 
a  second  time  into  his  mother's  womb  and  be  born  ?  * 
'No,'  says  Jesus,  'ye  must  be  born  of  water  and  the 
Spirit.  That  which  is  born  of  flesh  is  flesh ;  that  which 
is  born  of  Spirit  is  Spirit.'  Jesus  is  here  contrasting 
man's  psychical  birth  with  his  spiritual  birth. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  absolute  and  necessary 
condition  of  all  birth,  as  far  as  we  know  it  on  earth  — 
material,  psychical,  spiritual  —  is  water.  The  trouble 
is  that  you  and  your  Church  have  not  correctly 
analyzed  spiritual  birth  into  its  necessary  factors. 
The  three  absolutely  necessary  factors  in  any  kind  of 
human  birth  whatsoever,  as  far  as  we  can  know  it,  are 
Spirit,  water,  and  blood  in  unity.  Before  we  can, 
however,  enter  Christ's  kingdom  of  life,  which  He 
calls  the  Kingdom  of  God,  we  must  have  a  birth  which 


76  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

transcends  our  psychic  birth.  St.  Paul  clearly  saw 
this  when  he  said :  '  First  the  psychical  man,  after- 
wards the  spiritual  man.'  The  psychic  man  must 
have  a  psychic  birth,  the  spiritual  man  must  have  a 
spiritual  birth.  Every  child  is  born  an  animal  by 
means  of  water,  blood,  and  Spirit ;  never  is  one  born  a 
Christian  by  natural  birth,  but  has  to  be  made  one  by 
a  sexless  spiritual  birth  of  water,  blood,  and  Spirit, 
after  he  has  received  his  psychic  birth." 

^' Stop  !  Stop  ! "  said  he.  ''I  accept  that  interpreta- 
tion." ''But  why  do  you  so  gladly  accept  this  inter- 
pretation?" I  said.  ''Because,"  said  he,  ^'it  relieves 
me  from  the  necessity  of  believing  that  one  must  be 
baptized  in  order  to  be  saved.  I  do  not  believe  that 
Abraham,  David,  Isaiah,  and  the  untold  millions  who 
lived  before  Jesus  and  since,  and  who  never  were 
baptized,  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 

"But,"  I  said,  "I  do  believe  that  one  must  be  bap- 
tized not  only  before  he  can  enter  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven,  but  before  he  can  get  near  enough  even  to  see 
it." 

"Then,"  said  he,  "you  and  I  do  not  mean  the  same 
thing  by  baptism."  "Of  course  we  do  not,"  I  said. 
"Baptism  in  the  New  Testament  means  a  genuine 
bona  fide  spiritual  birth,  while  you  make  it  mean 
nothing  more  than  wetting  one  with  water.  Now  let 
us  see  if  we  cannot  reach  an  agreement. 

' '  Jesus  said  :  '  Ye  must  be  born  of  water  and  the  Spirit 
before  ye  can  enter  the  kingdom  of  God.'  Both 
psychic  and  spiritual  births  are  born  of  water.  God, 
man,  and  nature  —  Spirit,  water,  and  blood  —  neces- 
sarily cooperate  to  produce  psychic  birth  after  it  is 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  77 

once  introduced  into  the  world.  Water  is  the  life 
and  symbol  of  nature,  blood  of  man,  and  Spirit  of  God. 
Also  water  is  the  symbol  of  the  immanence  of  God, 
blood  of  the  incarnation  of  God,  and  Spirit  of  the 
transcendence  of  God ;  for  God  is  immanent  in  nature, 
incarnate  as  man,  and  also  transcends,  that  is,  is 
greater  than  man  and  nature.  This  is  what  St.  John 
means  when  he  says :  '  There  are  three  who  bear  wit- 
ness, the  Spirit,  and  the  water,  and  the  blood;  and 
these  three  agree  in  one.'     (i  John  5:8.) 

"Water,  Blood,  and  Spirit,  that  is,  God  and  Man  and 
Nature,  continue  to  act  upon  the  child  after  they  have 
produced  its  psychic  birth.  Every  child  has  three 
births  —  material,  psychical,  and  spiritual.  Water, 
blood,  and  Spirit  produce  all  three.  St.  Paul  in  his 
Epistles,  and  especially  in  Romans  and  Galatians,  is 
constantly  contrasting  our  psychic  and  spiritual 
births.  'The  works  of  the  flesh  (the  psychical  man) 
are  these :  adultery,  fornication,  uncleanness,  lascivi- 
ousness,  etc.  —  of  the  which  I  tell  you  that  they 
which  do  such  things  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of 
God.  But  the  fruit  of  the  spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace, 
long-suffering,  gentleness,  etc.  .  .  .  which  things  are 
the  kingdom  of  God.'     (Gal.  5  :  9-25  ;  Rom.  14  :  17.) 

"  We  are  now  ready  for  the  scriptural  definition  of 
baptism.  ^^ Baptism  is  the  process  of  changing  the 
psychic  man  into  the  spiritual  man,  without  which  no 
one  can  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In  the  sacrament 
of  baptism  we  use  the  factors  which  produce  this  spiritual 
birth.  What  did  Jesus  mean  when  he  said :  '  Go  ye 
into  all  the  world  and  baptize  every  creature  into 
the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,'  but 


78  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  make  Christians  out  of 
every  creature  ?  We  may  rest  assured  that  He  means 
vastly  more  than  wet  every  creature  with  water  in  a 
mere  ceremonial  rite. 

*^Let  us  consider  for  a  few  moments  the  significance 
of  baptizing  into  the  name  of  the  trinity,  and  not  in 
the  name  of  the  trinity,  which  you  will  note  is  one  of 
the  differences  between  the  translation  of  the  baptismal 
formula  in  the  Authorized  and  Revised  Versions  of 
the  Bible.  In  the  name  of  the  trinity  means  that  this 
ceremonial  rite  is  performed  by  the  authority  of  the 
trinity,  an  act  done  simply  because  Jesus  commanded 
it;  as  when  Ethan  Allen  captured  Ticonderoga  and 
the  British  officer  asked  by  whose  authority  the  sur- 
render was  demanded,  replied :  '  In  the  name  of  the 
great  Jehovah  and  Continental  Congress.'  When  a 
prisoner  is  pardoned  and  the  sheriff  lets  him  out,  he  does 
it  in  the  name  of  the  governor;  that  is,  hy  the  authority 
which  the  governor  delegates  to  him.  So  the  expres- 
sion in  the  name  of  means  hy  authority  of,  as  the  prisoner 
is  released  from  jail  by  authority  of  the  state.  The 
correct  translation  of  the  baptismal  formula  is  not  in 
the  name  of  God,  but  into  the  name  of  God.  The 
former  expression  means  hy  the  authority  of  God,  while 
the  latter  means  into  the  character  of  God.  This  will 
become  perfectly  clear  as  soon  as  we  know  what  the 
word  name  means  in  the  Bible. 

"  Among  us  to-day  the  name  of  a  person  tells  us  noth- 
ing about  the  character  of  the  person  who  bears  the 
name,  but  in  the  Bible  the  character  of  the  person  is 
contained  in  his  name.  For  instance,  Abraham  means 
father  of  a  multitude,  Isaac  laughter ,  Jacob  supplanter. 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  79 

Israel  prince  with  God.  The  names  of  these  men  reveal 
the  characters  of  these  men  as  perfectly  as  the  names 
Old  Hickory  and  Stonewall  reveal  the  characters  of 
two  of  our  Generals  in  American  history.  Baptism 
into  the  name  of  Jackson  can  mean  nothing  less  than 
give  people  a  character  like  Jackson's.  So  baptism 
into  the  name  of  God  means  change  the  psychic  man 
into  the  spiritual  man,  the  carnal  man  into  the  God- 
like man.  All  that  we  dare  hope  to  be  in  time  or 
eternity  is  wrapped  up  for  us  in  the  baptismal  formula, 
for  in  the  New  Testament  baptism  and  spiritual  birth 
mean  the  same  thing." 

^^So,"  said  he,  '^you  define  baptism  as  changing  the 
psychic  man  into  the  spiritual  man  ?  "  ^' Yes,"  said  I. 
*'And  baptismal  regeneration  is  the  process  by  which 
the  psychic  man  is  changed  into  the  spiritual  man?" 
said  he.  ''Yes,"  said  I.  "I  would  like  then  to  know 
what  means  you  use  in  this  process  by  which  you 
change  the  psychic  man  into  the  spiritual  man," 
said  he.  ''I  will  tell  you  most  gladly,"  said  I.  "We 
use  the  same  means  that  you  use  in  the  Baptist  Church 
in  making  people  Christians,  for  there  is  only  one 
possible  way  in  which  any  man  ever  was  made  a  Chris- 
tian, and  that  is  by  baptism.  But  let  me  tell  you  a 
story,  and  you  will  see  what  I  mean. 

"One  of  the  greatest  Christian  works  done  at  the 
present  time  in  England  is,  from  all  accounts,  that  of 
Lady  Henry  Somerset.  She  goes  down  into  the  slums 
of  London  and  gets  abandoned  men  and  women  and 
succeeds  in  regenerating  about  sixty  per  cent  of  them. 
How  does  she  do  it  ?  She  first  builds  beautiful  houses 
in  which  everything  is  kept  spotlessly  clean.     They 


8o  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

are  surrounded  by  beautiful  lawns,  flowers,  and  trees. 
The  managers  of  these  homes  are  the  highest  type  of 
consecrated  Christian  men  and  women  of  common 
sense.  In  the  chapel  daily  prayer  is  offered,  asking 
God  to  bless  and  sanctify  this  work  with  His  Holy 
Spirit.  Then  she  puts  these  people  to  work  in  the 
midst  of  these  beautiful  and  pure  Christian  surround- 
ings. This  is  how  she  baptizes  these  outcasts  into  the 
name  of  God  with  water  and  blood  and  spirit  —  the 
three  in  one. 

''  She  could  have  kept  them  in  London  and  used  the 
Spirit  of  God  and  the  same  consecrated  Christian  men 
and  women,  but  would  have  failed,  because  that  element 
of  spiritual  life  which  comes  through  the  regenerating 
power  of  water  would  have  been  absent.  She  would 
have  left  out  one  of  the  factors  absolutely  necessary 
to  make  a  Christian.  For  it  is  no  less  and  none  other 
than  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  immanent  in  nature 
who  folds  all  His  tired  children  upon  the  bosom  of 
mother  earth  and  nurses  us  back  to  life  again.  Back 
to  the  trees,  and  grass,  and  flowers,  all  ye  who  would 
be  regenerated  !  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  myth  of 
the  fabled  Antaeus  who  regained  his  strength  as  often 
as  he  touched  the  earth." 

*'Call  to  mind  now  these  remarkable  words  of  St. 
John :  '  There  are  three  who  bear  witness,  the  Spirit, 
and  the  water,  and  the  blood ;  and  the  three  agree  in 
one.'  (i  John  5  :  8.)  In  regenerating  these  outcasts 
in  London  Lady  Henry  Somerset  uses  water,  which 
is  nature  in  her  purest,  cleanest,  and  most  beautiful 
life-giving  forms ;  she  uses  blood,  which  is  the  highest 
and  most  consecrated  type  of   Christian  men  and 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL  BIRTH  8i 

women;  then  through  prayer  she  uses  the  Spirit  of 
God  who  as  such  transcends  His  embodied  life  as  man 
and  nature.  In  this  threefold  way  she  uses  the  one 
Spirit  of  God  as  the  means  through  which  to  regener- 
ate these  outcasts  of  London. 

*'This  is  what  the  Apostles  understood  when  they 
were  commanded  by  the  Lord  of  life  to  go  and  baptize 
the  nations  with  the  trinity  of  water,  blood,  and  spirit 
into  the  trinity  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  By 
this  time  I  trust  that  you  begin  to  see  something  of  that 
herculean  task  committed  to  the  Church  when  it  was 
commanded  to  baptize  psychic  humanity  into  God. 
Baptism  meant  to  the  Apostles  nothing  less  than  clean- 
ing out  that  Augean  stable  of  the  immoral  and  deca- 
dent world  of  the  filthy  and  polluted  Roman  Empire 
by  imparting  the  spirit  of  Christ  to  its  peoples.  To 
baptize  the  United  States  means  to  cleanse  the  United 
States  of  its  material,  mental,  and  spiritual  corruptions 
and  defilements  by  engrafting  the  spirit  of  Christ  into 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  The  men  in  politics 
to-day  who  are  really  trying  to  give  us  a  '  square  deal ' 
by  keeping  our  national  resources  from  being  de- 
stroyed, and  open  to  all,  are  in  reality,  though  they  may 
deny  it  theoretically,  baptizing  this  nation  into  God. 
The  symbolic  rite  which  we  perform  in  the  Church, 
called  the  sacrament  of  baptism,  teaches  us  that  we  are 
to  save  the  childhood  of  this  nation  as  Lady  Henry 
Somerset  regenerates  the  outcasts  of  London.  The 
sacrament  of  baptism  teaches  us  that  we  cannot 
baptize  this  nation,  if  we  let  the  greed  of  the  sinful 
manhood  of  the  nation  destroy,  or  bar  out  the 
children  of  the  nation  from  free  access  to,  the  life- 


82  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

giving  and  regenerating  powers  of  God,  man,  and 
nature." 

*'At  last  I  see  what  you  mean,"  said  he,  ^^and  I  be- 
lieve that  you  are  right."  "Yes,"  I  said,  "in  the 
sacrament  of  baptism  we  use  vera  causa;  that  is,  the 
forces  and  powers  of  God  which  actually  do  change  the 
psychic  man  into  the  spiritual  man.  We  use  water 
because  it  is  the  Ufe  of  nature  and  symbolizes  the  life 
of  nature  below  man,  which  plays  an  absolutely 
necessary  part  in  making  man  grow  into  the  fulness 
of  the  stature  of  Jesus,  who  grew  up  among  the  moun- 
tains by  the  sea  of  GaKlee  in  a  home  all  washed  clean. 
So  must  the  child  be  born  and  Hve  if  it  would  grow  up 
into  a  Christian.  At  last  we  are  learning  in  all  our 
schools  what  Wordsworth  has  taught  us  —  to  lead  our 
Children  back  to  God  through  nature  and  by  means 
of  nature.  The  world  is  at  last  learning  how  pro- 
foundly true  the  Church's  sacrament  of  baptism  is, 
and  why  in  that  sacrament  we  use  a  piece  of  water, 
and  now  for  some  two  thousand  years  have  unhesi- 
tatingly said  that  water  is  one  of  the  absolutely  neces- 
sary factors  which  God  uses  in  creating  our  material, 
psychical,  and  spiritual  births  —  and  is  as  necessary 
for  the  one  as  for  the  other,     (i  John  5 : 6.) 

"But  blood  is  as  necessary  a  factor  in  baptizing  the 
child  as  water  is.  The  child  of  nature  alone  is  a 
savage.  As  nature,  of  which  water  is  the  symbol, 
feeds  his  body  and  creates  his  five  senses,  so  the  society 
of  Christian  men  and  women,  of  which  blood  is  the 
symbol,  creates  in  the  child  of  nature  the  Christian 
type  of  character.  Savages  create  in  their  children 
the  savage  type  of  character,  while  Christian  civiliza- 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  8$ 

tion,  of  which  the  Church  is  the  mother,  creates  the 
Christian  type  of  character.  In  the  sacrament  of  bap- 
tism water  represents  nature,  the  minister  and  the 
sponsors  represent  the  Church,  teaching  that  it  takes 
a  Christian  to  make  a  Christian ;  that  the  whole 
Church  is  sponsor  and  is  responsible  for  the  creation 
of  the  spiritual  birth  of  the  nation.  And,  lastly,  by 
prayer  we  invoke  God,  our  heavenly  Father,  to  send 
His  Holy  Spirit  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  this  child, 
so  that,  in  the  fulness  of  its  divine  meaning,  the  child 
may  be  '  a  member  of  Christ,  a  child  of  God,  and  an 
inheritor  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.'  So  we  use 
water,  and  blood,  and  Spirit  in  baptizing  the  child 
into  the  name  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  So 
all  Christians  are  made." 

''And  when  do  they  begin  to  be  made?  "  he  said. 
''Let  me  tell  you  another  story,"  I  said.  "A  woman 
once  came  to  one  of  our  priests  and  said :  '  I  have  a 
child  whom  I  am  very  anxious  to  educate  properly, 
and  I  wish  to  begin  at  the  very  earliest  moment. 
When  ought  I  to  begin  ? '  '  How  old  is  your  child  ? ' 
said  the  clergyman.  'Five  years  old,'  said  she. 
'Madam,'  said  he  very  slowly,  'you  have  waited 
five  years  too  long;  you  ought  to  have  begun  the 
moment  he  was  born;  for  his  education  does  begin 
the  moment  he  is  born,  whether  you  direct  it  or  not, 
and  whether  you  wish  it  and  will  it  or  not.' 

"So  the  Church  has  always  taught,  however  much 

it  may  have  been  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted, 

,  that  the  spiritual  birth  of  the  child  begins  as  soon  as 

the  child  is  materially  born;    and,  if  you  ask  how, 

the  answer  all  through  the  ages  has  been  by  water, 


84  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

blood,  and  spirit  —  just  as  Lady  Somerset  regenerates 
the  outcasts  of  London.  In  the  place  of  these  out- 
casts suppose  she  had  children  coming  fresh  from  the 
hand  of  God,  would  not  the  same  means  create  the 
same  spirituahty  in  them  ?  If  not,  why  not  ?  Would 
not  the  same  spirituality  be  much  easier  to  create  in 
them,  because  the  twig  is  much  easier  bent  than  the 
tree? 

*' Furthermore  what  would  you  think  of  a  mother 
who  would  dehberately  so  act  that  her  child  would  be 
born  a  cripple  ?  Would  she  not  be  a  criminal  ?  Has 
not  the  child  the  same  right  to  be  spiritually  well  born 
as  to  be  physically  well  born  ?  Do  not  the  parents 
take  part  both  in  the  child's  spiritual  and  natural 
births  ? 

''Some  two  or  three  years  elapse  between  the  time 
the  child  is  born  naturally  until  it  is  born  psychically; 
that  is,  wakes  up  to  self-consciousness  and  says  /. 
What  sort  of  an  '/'  ought  the  child  to  find  itself  to 
be  when  it  comes  to  self-consciousness  ?  What  ought 
we  to  be  doing  with  the  child  during  these  most  plastic 
years  of  its  Hf e  ?  Can  we  so  train  the  child  that  when 
it  comes  to  self-consciousness,  and  for  the  first  time 
says  I,  it  will  not  only  be  a  psychic,  but  a  spiritual, 
consciousness  and  I  ? 

"  Some  people  tell  me  that  they  cannot  remember 
when  they  learned  to  read,  for  they  learned  to  read 
before  they  can  remember,  as  they  always  learn  to 
talk.  In  like  manner  is  it  not  possible  to  have  children 
say :  *  I  do  not  know  when  I  became  a  Christian ;  I 
waked  up  in  this  world  and  found  myself  one.' 

*'This  is  the  Church's  ideal  and  is  what  baptismal 


BAPTISM   A   SPIRITUAL   BIRTH  85 

regeneration  means ;  not  the  awakening  of  the  spiritual 
nature  of  the  child  by  the  emotional  methods  of  the 
hot-house  process  of  the  protracted  meeting,  but  the 
creation  of  spiritual  hfe  in  the  child  by  the  natural 
and  normal  methods  of  Christian  nurture,  well  known 
and  well  tested  by  the  experience  of  all  ages  of  the 
Christian  Church.  The  abnormal  method  of  the 
protracted  meeting  finds  its  fitting  and  proper  place, 
not  in  dealing  with  children,  but  as  the  last  resort 
of  the  Christian  Church  to  bring  hardened  and  aban- 
doned sinners  to  repentance.  This  method  of  produc- 
ing conversion  does  the  child  great  wrong,  for  it  corre- 
sponds to  the  violent  purgative  methods  of  materia 
medica,  and  to  the  methods  of  the  state  in  dealing 
with  hardened  criminals.  Both  methods  have  their 
place,  but  it  is  positively  criminal  to  subject  the  young 
child  to  this  kind  of  treatment.  The  Church's  method 
from  the  beginning,  both  in  the  Mosaic  and  Christian 
dispensations,  is  right,  which  is  to  take  the  young  and 
tender  child  fresh  from  the  hand  of  God  and  so  nurture 
and  train  it  that  the  child's  spiritual  nature  and  con- 
sciousness will  dawn  as  naturally  as  its  psychic  con- 
sciousness, and  both  together. 

*^In  conclusion  I  would  like  to  impress  it  upon  you 
that  your  child  does  begin  to  be  regenerated  as  soon 
as  it  is  born,  and  that  you  do  begin  to  baptize  it  either 
into  the  world  or  into  God  as  soon  as  it  is  born.  For 
clearly  realize  that  the  world  baptizes  as  well  as  the 
Church,  and  that  they  both  baptize  with  spirit,  water, 
and  blood,  as  soon  as  the  child  is  born.  If  you  let  the 
world  baptize  your  child  with  its  sin-stained  water, 
blood,  and  spirit,  it  will  be  made  a  worldling;  if  the 


86  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Church  baptizes  your  child  with  the  regenerating 
Spirit,  water,  and  blood  of  God,  it  will  be  made  a 
Christian.  And,  lastly,  that  it  is  that  baptism  alone 
with  which  the  Church  baptizes  your  child  that  can 
overcome  the  baptism  of  sinful  men  which  baptizes 
it  into  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil." 


VII 


BAPTISM,   THE   SYMBOL   OF  BAPTISM,   AND  THE   SACRA- 
MENT OF  BAPTISM 

The  essence  of  the  gospel  as  St.  Paul  preached  it 
is  that  ''there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  Jew 
nor  Greek,  neither  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision, 
neither  male  nor  female,  but  a  new  creature  in  Christ- 
Jesus."  He  taught  that  not  until  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  who  is  immanent  in  nature  and  incarnate  as 
Jesus,  is  incarnate  in  us  are  we  saved.  So  he  says : 
*'My  little  children,  of  whom  I  travail  in  birth  again, 
until  Christ  be  formed  in  you ;  for  as  many  of  you  as 
have  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ." 
(Gal.  4:5;  3:27.)  St.  Paul  interpreted  baptism  as 
putting  on  Christ,  the  forming  of  Christ  in  us,  which 
makes  us  new  creatures  by  a  spiritual  birth  which  tran- 
scends our  psychic  birth.  This  is  how  he  understood  : 
"Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Let  us  make  this  practical  and  bring  it  home  to  our- 
selves as  vividly  as  possible.  A  little  child,  sent  from 
heaven,  is  born  into  your  home.  It  is  not  sent  into 
a  heathen  home ;  for  its  father  is  a  Christian  father  and 
its  mother  is  a  Christian  mother.  You  hold  the  new- 
born baby  in  your  arms  and  the  first  thought  that 
comes  into  your  mind  is:  "I  want  this  child  to  be  a 

87 


88  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

good  man.  I  want  him  to  be  a  benediction  to  his 
family,  a  blessing  to  his  country,  and  an  honor  to 
his  God."  You  ask  yourself  in  all  humility  and 
reverence  and  in  the  sight  of  God :  ''How  can  I  make 
him  a  Christian  and  when  ought  I  to  begin?" 

At  such  a  time  as  this,  feeling  as  you  do  these  sacred 
obligations  resting  upon  you,  the  supreme  thought  in 
your  mind  is:  ''I  want  to  know  the  truth,  nothing 
but  the  truth,  and  the  whole  truth  —  how  can  I  make 
my  child  a  Christian?  When  ought  I  to  begin?  I 
do  not  wish  to  lose  a  minute,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  go 
wrong." 

So  the  Christian  parent  asks  himself  to-day  as  Chris- 
tian fathers  and  mothers  have  asked  themselves  all 
through  the  ages.  How  did  they  answer  this  ques- 
tion? Was  their  answer  right?  What  was  their 
answer  ?  Their  answer  was  and  is  :  In  making  your 
child  a  Christian  you  must  use  all  the  life  there  is  in 
the  universe  except  sinful  life. 

Understand  that  your  child  has  three  births.  The 
first  birth  is  a  material  birth  which  takes  nine  months 
to  complete.  Now  ask  yourself  what  necessary  factors 
cooperate  to  produce  this  birth  ?  As  you  ponder  upon 
this  you  soon  see  that  the  trinity  of  God,  man,  and 
nature  —  each  plays  an  absolutely  necessary  part  in 
producing  this  birth.  "There  are  three  who  bear 
witness,  the  Spirit,  and  the  water,  and  the  blood ; 
and  the  three  agree  in  one."  By  using  a  figure  of 
speech  in  which  a  part  is  taken  for  the  whole,  St.  John 
instead  of  nature  says  water,  and  instead  of  the  incar- 
nate life  of  God  says  blood,  and  instead  of  the  trinity 
of  God  transcendent  says  Spirit. 


THE   SYMBOL   OF   BAPTISM  89 

During  nine  months,  Spirit,  water,  and  blood  co- 
operating create  the  child's  material  birth ;  the  same 
three  factors  continue  to  act  upon  the  child,  and  in 
the  course  of  two  or  three  years  evolve  its  psychic 
birth;  the  same  three  factors  continue  to  act  upon 
the  child,  and,  in  course  of  time,  evolve  its  spiritual 
birth.  So  God,  man,  and  nature,  acting  in  unity, 
create  and  evolve  the  child's  threefold  birth  —  ma- 
terial, psychical,  and  spiritual. 

How  we  are  made  Christians  is  taught  in  symbols, 
which  symboKc  action  is  the  sacrament  of  baptism. 
The  justification  of  this  symbolic  action  is  its  truth. 
For  (i)  it  teaches  us  how  we  are  made  children  of  God, 
(2)  by  symbolically  using  Spirit,  water,  and  blood, 
the  vera  causa  of  spiritual  birth;  (3)  the  vera  causa  and 
the  symbolic  action  are  one  act  in  the  sacrament  of  Chris- 
tian baptism. 

What  is  a  symbolic  action?  When  I  write  2  plus 
2  equals  4,  this  is  a  true  symbolic  action,  because  it  is 
true,  not  only  in  the  moment  of  time  in  which  I  am 
writing  it,  but  because  it  is  eternally  true. 

What  is  the  difference  between  baptism  and  the 
sacrament  of  baptism?  Baptism  is  the  eternally  acting 
vera  causa  producing  spiritual  birth,  while  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism  is  the  personal,  definite,  and  specific 
application  of  this  eternal  vera  causa  to  the  individual 
by  the  Christian  Church  for  the  purpose  of  regenerat- 
ing him ;  as  when  I  raise  the  sail  in  my  boat,  I  use  the 
wind,  which  is  blowing  all  the  time  over  the  water,  to 
now  blow  my  boat;  as  the  manufacturer  builds  his 
factory  by  the  riverside  in  order  to  use  the  water 
which  is  running  all  the  time  to  now  turn  his  factory. 


go  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Baptism  is  the  vera  causa  which  is  making  us  Christians 
all  the  time,  while  in  the  sacrament  of  baptism  we  use 
the  vera  causa  symbolically;  that  is,  only  for  a  few 
moments  of  time. 

This  symbolic  action  is  as  follows :  (i)  water  is  used; 
(2)  blood  is  used  —  the  minister,  sponsors,  and  con- 
gregation; (3)  the  Spirit  of  God  is  used  by  the  invoca- 
tion of  prayer. 

What  is  a  sacrament?  A  sacrament  (i)  is  an  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace; 
(2)  this  outward  and  visible  sign  is  the  means  (3) 
whereby  we  are  made  partakers  of  this  inward  and 
spiritual  grace. 

What  is  the  outward  and  visible  part  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism  ?     Water,  blood,  and  prayer. 

What  is  the  inward  and  invisible  part  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism  ?    The  Spirit  of  God,  man,  and  nature. 

What  is  the  spiritual  grace  which  we  receive  from 
the  union  of  the  visible  and  invisible  parts  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism?  Birth  of  the  spiritual  man  tran- 
scending the  psychical  man.  (Catechism :  a  death 
unto  sin,  and  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness.) 

What  is  meant  by  water  in  the  sacrament  of  bap- 
tism ?  (i)  It  is  a  part  of  the  world  of  nature ;  (2)  it 
is  the  life  of  the  world  of  nature ;  (3)  it  is  the  symbol 
of  the  immanence  of  God  in  the  world  of  nature. 

Is  water  necessary  to  produce  spiritual  birth? 
Yes ;  the  Spirit  of  God  moving  upon  the  face  of  water 
creates  our  threefold  birth  —  material,  psychical,  and 
spiritual.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  life  embodied  in 
this  world  in  which  water  is  not  one  of  the  factors 
used  in  producing  it. 


THE   SYMBOL  OF   BAPTISM  91 

What  do  you  mean  when  you  say  that  our  spiritual 
birth  is  generated  by  water,  blood,  and  Spirit?  I 
mean  that  our  spiritual  birth  is  generated  by  the  com- 
bined and  unified  action  of  God :  (i)  as  he  is  immanent  in 
nature,  (2)  as  He  is  incarnate  in  His  Church  through 
Christ- Jesus  our  Lord,  (3)  as  He  eternally  transcends 
His  immanent  and  incarnate  earth  life. 

What  is  the  difference  between  the  sacraments  of  the 
Church  and  human  sacraments;  as,  for  instance,  the 
flag  of  our  country?  The  sacraments  of  the  Church 
are  vera  causa,  the  factors  which  actually  produce  life, 
while  in  human  sacraments  the  symbols  do  not  produce 
the  Hfe  symbolized.  As,  for  instance,  the  flag  of  our 
country  is  not  a  part  of  our  country,  and  does  not 
produce  our  country,  while  in  the  Sacraments  of  Bap- 
tism, Confirmation,  and  Holy  Communion,  the  sym- 
bols are  none  of  our  artificial  making  to  represent  the 
life  symbolized,  but  the  symbols  used  are  the  vera 
causa  which  produces  life. 

I  now  wish  to  show  you  as  quickly  as  possible  that 
this  eternal  life  process,  of  which  the  sacrament  of 
baptism  is  the  symbol,  begins  the  moment  the  child  is 
born;  for  the  very  grounds  out  of  which  the  sacra- 
ments of  the  Christian  Church  legitimately  and  neces- 
sarily grow  are  that  they  are  eternal  life  processes. 

When  the  baby  is  born  in  this  world,  it  has  eyes  and 
sees  not,  ears  and  hears  not,  a  tongue  and  tastes  not,  a 
nose  and  smells  not;  for  when  the  baby  is  born,  it  is 
nothing  but  a  bundle  of  possible  psychic  sensations, 
which  are  differentiated  into  its  self-conscious  five  senses 
later  on.  The  combined  action  of  Spirit,  water,  and 
blood  generate  its  material  birth  in  its  mother's  womb, 


92  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

but  as  soon  as  it  leaves  its  mother's  flesh  womb  and 
enters  the  larger  womb  of  the  world  of  nature,  the 
same  Spirit,  water,  and  blood  —  by  which  is  meant 
God,  man,  and  nature  —  seize  hold  of  the  child  and 
begin  to  evolve  its  mental  life  involved  in  its  ma- 
terial birth.  So  after  two  or  three  years  it  wakes  up 
and  says  /. 

I  have  said  that  the  Hght  creates  the  eye  cells  with 
which  we  see,  and  so  with  all  of  the  other  material 
senses ;  but  while  the  material  process  is  going  on,  the 
psychical  process  is  also  in  operation,  for  neither  the 
eye  in  itself,  nor  the  ear  in  itself,  ever  sees  or  hears ;  for, 
if  so,  a  corpse  could  see  and  hear.  My  eye  or  ear 
through  which  I  hear  and  see  is  as  much  an  instrument 
as  an  ear  trumpet  or  a  microscope  is.  What  I  wish  you 
to  see  is  that  until  self-consciousness  is  aroused  there 
is  no  seeing,  hearing,  etc.  We  can  do  none  of  these 
things  while  we  are  asleep,  but  only  when  we  are  awake. 

If  you  are  asleep,  I  can  take  a  visible  thing,  a  pin, 
and  by  sticking  it  into  you  awake  you,  by  arousing  into 
activity  that  invisible  thing  called  your  mind.  This  is 
what  God,  man,  and  nature  begin  to  do  with  the  child 
as  soon  as  it  is  born.  They  stick  all  sorts  of  pins  into 
the  new-born  baby,  and  continue  to  do  so  all  through 
its  hfe.  The  winds,  Hghts,  colors,  and  odors  of  nature ; 
the  whole  organized  Hfe  of  humanity ;  and  the  Spirit 
of  God  —  all  seize  hold  of  the  baby  as  soon  as  it  is 
born  and  begin  to  wake  him  to  his  psychic  life. 

Compare  now  the  child  born  of  the  Indian,  subjected 
for  centuries  to  the  wild,  lawless,  and  untamed  life  of 
the  wilderness,  with  the  child  born  of  forty  generations 
of  Christian  ancestors  in  the  midst  of  Christian  civiliza- 


THE   SYMBOL   OF  BAPTISM  93 

tion.  Will  they  wake  with  the  same  consciousness? 
Will  there  not  be  incarnate  in  the  one  all  the  instincts 
of  savage  life  ?  While  the  Christian  child,  nurtured 
and  trained  in  a  Christian  home,  will,  or  ought  to,  come . 
to  his  psychical  consciousness  with  a  spiritual  conscious- 
ness also.  We  find  this  same  law  operating  in  the  tame 
and  wild  animals;  as,  for  instance,  in  the  dog  and  wolf. 
So  I  could  illustrate  this  great  law  in  a  thousand 
ways,  but  I  think  that  I  have  said  enough  to  make  it 
plain.  So  I  will  conclude  this  lecture  by  calling  your 
attention  to  two  remarkable  men,  one  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  the  other  in  the  Old  Testament,  Samuel 
and  John  the  Baptist.  Call  to  mind  their  parentage, 
boyhood,  and  how  they  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost 
from  their  mothers'  wombs.  That  which  in  that  far- 
away age  of  the  world  was  the  abnormal  birth  ought 
to  be  in  a  Christian  civilization  the  normal  birth  of 
children  born  of  Christian  parents.  They  ought  to 
come  to  self-consciousness  not  only  with  a  twofold 
material-psychic  consciousness,  but  with  a  threefold 
material-psychic-spiritual  consciousness.  This  is  the 
ideal  birth  which  the  Christian  Church  has  taught  all 
through  the  ages  is  the  possible  birth  of  every  child, 
realized  for  the  first  time  in  the  birth  of  Jesus,  which  He 
reproduces  through  His  Church  in  all  psychic  human- 
ity. This  is  what  the  Church  means  by  baptismal 
regeneration  —  that  spiritual  birth  which  psychic 
humanity  cannot  possibly  produce  in  itself,  but  is  gen- 
erated in  psychic  man  by  God  acting  through  His  In- 
carnate self  in  His  Church,  and  His  Spirit  immanent  in 
the  world  of  nature.  By  Church  we  mean  those  who 
have  been  spiritually  born  of  God — Christian  people. 


VIII 


DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  JOHN  S  BAPTISM  AND  CHRISTIAN 

BAPTISM 

It  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  in  the  world  to 
recover  the  original  Christian  meaning  of  the  word 
"baptism."  Nevertheless  it  is  well  worth  our  while  to 
do  so,  because  until  this  is  done  there  is  not  the  ghost 
of  a  chance  of  reuniting  a  divided  Christendom. 

The  Evangelical  Churches  mean  one  thing  by  bap- 
tism, the  Roman  Church  means  another  thing  by  bap- 
tism, while  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  mean  still 
another  thing  by  baptism.  Here  we  have  the  inevi- 
table cause  and  source  of  widespread  confusion  and  mis- 
understanding in  the  Christian  Church.  Let  us  see  if 
we  cannot  unravel  the  threads  of  this  tangled  maze 
and  get  at  its  truth. 

The  Evangelical  Churches  mean  by  baptism  nothing 
more  than  wetting  one  with  water  in  the  name  of  the 
trinity.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  saving  a  man  either 
symboHcally  or  really  from  a  sinful  life,  and  tells  us 
nothing  about  how  we  get  our  spiritual  birth,  which,  all 
of  us  are  agreed,  saves  us  from  a  sinful  life.  Because 
baptism  has  been  emptied  of  this,  its  spiritual  signifi- 
cance and  Scriptural  meaning,  it  has  become  as  dead 
and  empty  as  a  sepulchre,  a  ceremonial  rite,  the  mean- 
ing of  which  has  been  lost,  and   continued   simply 

94 


CHRISTIAN  BAPTISM  95 

because  Jesus  commanded  it.  Any  other  method  of 
initiation  into  the  Church,  as  far  as  many  see  and 
understand,  might  have  done  just  as  well,  if  not  better. 

But  just  as  soon  as  we  know  that,  in  the  sacrament  of 
baptism,  there  is  used  symbolically  and  actually  the 
vera  causa  of  spiritual  birth,  then  it  is  seen  at  once  how 
impossible  any  other  symbols  could  have  been  used 
than  the  ones  that  are  used,  because  Spirit,  water,  and 
blood  —  the  symbols  used  in  the  sacrament  of  baptism 
—  do,  and  alone  can,  create  our  spiritual  birth. 

Of  course,  if  baptism  means  nothing  more  than  wet- 
ting one  with  water  as  the  method  of  admitting  you 
into  an  artificial  human  society,  baptism  as  a  religious 
sacrament  is  a  nonentity ;  and  no  reasonable  spiritual- 
minded  man  or  woman  would  give  it  five  minutes^ 
thought.  We  may  rest  assured,  upon  general  prin- 
ciples, that  Jesus  never  would  have  assigned  to  such 
an  empty  rite  as  this  the  place  of  supreme  importance 
which  He  gave  to  baptism  when  He  said :  ''  Go,  bap- 
tize all  nations  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the 
Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

But  as  greatly  as  I  beHeve  that  our  Evangelical 
brethren  have  erred  in  interpreting  the  meaning  of 
baptism,  our  Roman  brethren  on  the  other  hand,  I 
believe,  have  fallen  into  an  error  even  more  fatal. 
They  teach  that  no  person  can  be  saved  imless  he  is 
wet  with  water  in  the  name  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost.  I  quote  you  the  words  of  an  author  who, 
though  not  a  Romanist,  teaches  the  Roman  interpreta- 
tion of  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  He  says:  ^'Here 
the  question  suggests  itself,  Are  all  unbaptized  persons 
(those  not  wet  with  water  in  the  name  of  the  trinity) 


96  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

then  lost?  Before  replying  categorically  yes  or  no, 
we  must  explain  clearly  what  we  mean  by  lost.  If  we 
mean  by  lost  that  they  are  in  the  torments  of  hell,  no ; 
unless  they  have  sinned  against  the  light  of  nature; 
for  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  who  is  unbaptized 
(one  not  wet  with  water  in  the  name  of  the  trinity), 
but  who  lives  a  life  according  to  his  knowledge  and 
light,  to  enjoy  in  eternity  what  we  call  ''natural  beati- 
tude"; that  is,  the  happiness  of  all  his  natural  facul- 
ties." 1 

In  answer  to  this  we  reply  :  through  psychical  birth, 
and  this  is  what  our  author  means  by  natural  birth,  we 
enter  the  realm  of  psychical  Hfe  only,  and  no  other,  of 
course.  The  truth  this  author  is  contending  for  is  that 
no  one  can  enter  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  the 
kingdom  of  spiritual  life,  except  through  a  spiritual 
birth;  but  his  error  lies  in  thinking  that  spiritual 
birth  is  limited  to,  and  takes  place  only  in,  the  sacra- 
ment of  baptism;  while  the  very  raison  d^etre  of  the 
sacraments  of  the  Christian  Church  is  that  they  are 
the  symbolic  acting  in  a  few  moments  of  time  of  the 
eternally  creative  and  redemptive  action  of  God. 
The  justification  of  the  sacrament  of  baptism  is  that  in 
it  Jesus  teaches  how  we  are  spiritually  born :  not  by 
spirit  alone,  but  by  spirit  and  blood  and  water,  in 
imion ;  that  is,  by  God  transcendent,  immanent,  and 
incarnate. 

Here  you  have  the  opposite  and  contrasted  effects  of 
baptism  as  taught  by  the  Evangelical  and  the  Roman- 
ist. The  Evangehcal  and  the  Romanist  both  teach  that 
baptism  is  wetting  a  person  with  water  in  the  name  of 

1  Words  in  parentheses  added  by  writer. 


CHRISTIAN  BAPTISM  97 

the  trinity.  The  Evangehcal  rightly  says  that  there  is 
no  magic  in  the  words  of  this  ceremonial  rite  to  change 
the  character  of  the  individual,  and,  by  so  doing,  effect 
the  destiny  of  his  soul.  There  is  no  magic,  of  course,  in 
the  sacrament  of  baptism,  as  in  it  there  is  used,  for  a 
few  moments  of  time,  the  factors  which  produce 
spiritual  birth  all  the  time.  The  trouble  with  the 
Evangelical  is  that  he  has  not  sufficiently  analyzed  the 
process  of  spiritual  birth  to  know  that  spirit  embodied 
as  water  and  spirit  incarnate  as  blood  are  as  necessary 
factors  in  producing  spiritual  birth  as  transcendent 
spirit  is.  He  erroneously  thinks  that  the  action  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  which  comes  as  the  result  of  his  agonizing 
prayer,  bringing  peace  to  his  storm- tossed  soul,  is  the 
only  factor  used  in  producing  his  spiritual  birth.  In 
fact  he  does  not  know  that  his  spiritual  birth  must 
come  first,  and  is  the  cause  of  his  prayer  of  repentance 
and  faith,  through  which  he  throws  off  the  dominion 
of  the  flesh  and  begins  to  live  the  spiritual  hfe  of  God. 
Stop  a  moment  here  and  think  what  this  means. 
Two  men  are  both  contentedly  Hving  the  life  of  the 
flesh,  and  both  are  happy.  To-morrow  one  is  wretched 
and  miserable  and  in  the  agony  of  conflict,  fighting  the 
sinful  desires  of  his  flesh.  The  other  is  as  contented 
and  happy  to-day  in  the  same  lusts  of  his  flesh  as  he 
was  on  yesterday.  What  makes  the  difference  between 
the  two  ?  What  change  has  taken  place  in  the  soul  of 
the  one  which  has  not  taken  place  in  the  soul  of  the 
other  ?  The  one  has  come  into  self-conscious  possession 
of  his  spiritual  birth,  wrought  out  in  his  soul  by  God 
through  His  Church,  while  the  other  has  not.  Repen- 
tance, faith,  and  prayer,  on  the  part  of  the  person 


98  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

spiritually  born,  cannot  precede  his  spiritual  birth. 
They  are  the  result  not  the  cause  of  his  spiritual  birth, 
as  I  will  explain  in  detail  in  another  chapter. 

The  Romanist  says,  if  the  magic  rite  of  the  sacra- 
ment baptism  is  not  performed,  the  person  can  never 
be  spiritually  born,  and  will  quote  you  these  words  of 
the  Lord  Jesus:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot 
enter  the  kingdom  of  God." 

Here  our  Evangelical  and  Roman  brethren  are  in 
hopeless  conflict;  both  thoroughly  in  earnest,  one  as 
learned  as  the  other,  one  as  good  as  the  other,  and  both 
accepted  with  God.  What  is  needed  is  not  less  zeal 
but  more  light,  and  the  power  of  looking  at  the  sub- 
ject from  the  point  of  view  of  the  other.  When  this  is 
done,  the  most  curious  thing  about  the  whole  matter 
is,  strange  as  it  may  seem  at  first  sight,  that  they 
are  both  wrong  in  the  thing  in  which  they  both  agree,  if 
I  have  correctly  interpreted  them.  They  both  agree 
that  Christian  baptism  is  wetting  one  with  water  in  the 
name  of  the  trinity  of  God  by  one  who  is  a  Christian, 
and  that  the  whole  process  of  spiritual  birth  begins 
and  ends  while  pronouncing  the  words:  "I  baptize 
thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 

The  fundamental  mistake  they  both  make  is  that 
this  ceremonial  act  is  baptism;  when  in  reality  it  is  not 
baptism,  but  the  sacrament  of  baptism. 

Baptism  is  birth  into  Christ's  kingdom  of  life ;  the 
absolute  vera  causa  of  this  spiritual  birth  is  Spirit, 
blood,  and  water  —  by  which  St.  John  means  God, 
man,  and  nature.  This  vera  causa  is  symbolically  and 
actually  used  in  the  sacrament  of  baptism,  because 


CHRISTIAN  BAPTISM  99 

God  eternally  uses  it  in  creating  spiritual  birth.  In 
fact  it  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  know  that  human 
birth  of  any  kind,  material,  psychical,  or  spiritual, 
ever  has  entered  this  world.  It  is  in  perfect  accord 
with  physiology,  psychology,  and  metaphysics;  with 
science,  human  experience,  and  the  Scriptures,  which 
the  Church  has  been  symbolically  teaching  in  the  sac- 
rament of  baptism  from  the  beginning,  however  much 
it  has  been  misunderstood  and  emptied  of  its  divine 
meaning,  on  the  one  hand  by  our  Evangelical  brethren, 
and  obscured  by  our  Roman  brethren  on  the  other 
hand. 

For  many  millions  of  years  there  was  no  other  kind 
of  birth  on  this  earth  other  than  a  material  birth  cul- 
minating in  the  highest  type  of  the  animal ;  but  even 
this  birth  would  be  an  impossibility  without  the  coop- 
eration of  Spirit,  water,  and  blood  in  unity.  For  many 
thousands  of  years  there  was  the  psychical  birth  of 
man  transcending  this  material  birth,  but  it,  like  the 
animal  birth,  was  wrought  out  by  the  combined  action 
of  Spirit,  water,  and  blood.  Then  there  was  finally 
wrought  out  in  this  world  another  birth  transcending 
this  psychical  birth,  called  spiritual  birth ;  it  also  being 
wrought  out  by  the  combined  action  of  Spirit,  water, 
and  blood.  This  highest  birth  of  man,  which  in  us 
takes  place  after,  and  transcends,  our  psychical  birth, 
is  what  the  Christian  Church  means  by  Baptism. 
This  birth,  which  in  reality  begins  to  take  place  as  soon 
as  man  is  psychically  born,  by  the  regenerating  action 
of  Spirit,  water,  and  blood,  foimd  its  first  complete 
consummation  in  the  incarnation  of  the  eternal  Son  of 
God,  which  is  symboHcally  reenacted  in  the  sacra- 


loo  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

ment  of  Christian  baptism,  in  which  the  very  vera 
causa  —  God,  man,  and  nature  —  is  used,  through 
which  God  incarnates  himself  as  Jesus  and  reproduces 
His  incarnation  in  us. 

These  words  exactly  describe  Christian  baptism 
which  brings  this  spiritual  birth  into  the  world: 
^'Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  That 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  born 
of  the  spirit  is  spirit.'*  To  bring  this  spiritual  birth 
into  the  world,  and  universalize  it,  as  the  psychic  birth 
of  man  was  imiversalized  through  Adam,  God  was 
born  as  Jesus,  Hved,  died,  and  rose  again.  Baptism 
into  the  name  of  Father,  and  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 
by  means  of  Spirit,  water,  and  blood,  is  how  this  eter- 
nal Hfe  of  God  is  continually  reproduced  in  the  life  of 
man. 

When  we  read  in  the  Bible  about  being  ^'baptized 
into  the  name  of  God,"  we  say,  oh,  this  is  simple  enough; 
it  means  pronounce  the  words  "  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,"  while  pouring  on  the  water.  If  it  meant  this 
and  nothing  more,  the  Church  never  would  have 
bothered  its  brain  about  baptism.  Life  is  too  fifll  of 
realities  to  spend  it  in  such  trifles  as  this,  you  may  be 
well  assured. 

We  begin  to  appreciate  something  of  the  subHmity 
of  the  meaning  of  ^'baptism  into  the  name  of  God" 
when  we  know  that  the  name  of  a  person  is  used  in  the 
Bible  to  reveal  his  character,  the  very  innermost  es- 
sence of  his  personality.  For  instance,  the  name  of 
Jacob  means  cheater,  supplanter,  which  describes  the 
character  of  Jacob  as  he  began  his  Kfe;    but  by 


CHRISTIAN   BAPTISM  loi 

bitter  experience  and  the  grace  of  God  Jacob's  charac- 
ter was  changed,  and  he  received  a  new  name  which  de- 
scribes his  new-born  character.  His  name  was  changed 
from  Jacob  to  Israel  which  means  prince  with  God. 
So  when  Jesus  gave  his  last  command  and  com- 
mission to  His  Apostles,  saying,  ''Go  ye  therefore 
and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost," 
it  meant  vastly  more  than  put  water  on  people  in  the 
name  of  God.  Baptism  means  make  people  Godlike. 
Baptism  means  putting  into  us  the  Godlike  heart,  mind, 
love,  and  sacrifice.  Baptism  means  making  us  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature.  Baptism  means  saturat- 
ing us  with  Divinity.  Baptism  means  making  us 
partakers  of  the  very  nature  of  God:  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost. 

Thus  did  the  Apostles  receive  their  full  and  final 
commission,  which  can  be  written  on  a  scrap  of  paper, 
held  in  one  corner  of  the  brain,  but  which  means  noth- 
ing less  than  the  age-long  regeneration  of  the  world, 
by  lifting  humanity  into  God.  How  were  these  poor 
weak  men  to  accompHsh  this  stupendous  work  ?  They 
knew  not.  They  were  told  to  wait  at  Jerusalem  until 
they  were  endued  with  power  from  on  high.  When 
the  tongues  of  fire  rested  upon  them,  that  which  was 
dark  was  made  luminous  by  the  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  After  this  they  knew  how  the  spiritual  man  is 
born.  How  simple  it  all  seems  to  us  now,  as  all  great 
things,  when  accomplished,  seem  so  very  simple ! 
They  remembered  how  Jesus  had  said,  ''Where  two  or 
three  are  gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I 
in  the  midst  of  them."     They  understood  how  the 


I02  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

great  and  eternal  purpose  of  God  had  been  wrought  out 
through  the  subhme  personahty  of  Christ- Jesus  our 
Lord.  It  burst  upon  them  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  and 
flashing  tongues  of  Pentecostal  fire,  that  God  had  in- 
carnated Himself  as  that  one  matchless,  splendid, 
heroic,  self-sacrificing  human  fife,  not  that  His  incarna- 
tion might  end  with  that  life,  leaving  the  world  blacker 
and  more  helpless  for  that  one  isolated  incarnation, 
as  one  vivid  flash  of  lightning  leaves  the  world  more 
bHndingly  dark  after  that  flash  has  gone,  but  to  be 
reproduced  in  all  men. 

As  Jesus  was  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  born 
of  the  supreme  faith  of  His  mother,  so  the  Church  was 
conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  born  of  the  supreme 
faith  of  the  disciples  in  that  upper  room  in  Jerusalem, 
through  which  Christ  will  forever  reproduce  and  extend 
His  incarnation  for  His  blessed  redemptive  work  in  the 
world.  The  Church  is  the  extension  of  the  incarnation 
of  Christ  in  the  world,  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  and 
baptizing  the  world  into  the  spiritual  nature  of  the 
most  high  God. 

Before  his  departure  He  showed  how  we  are  born 
into,  and  then  nourished  in,  His  Kingdom  of  Hfe,  by 
two  simple  sacraments,  in  which  is  used  the  vera  causa 
of  this  eternal  birth  and  nourishment,  which  is  sym- 
bolically taught  in  the  Sacraments  of  Baptism  and 
Holy  Communion.  They  are  both  outward  and  visible 
signs  of  eternally  acting  spiritual  grace.  In  the  action 
of  the  Sacraments  of  the  Christian  Church,  we  see  the 
eternally  creative  and  redemptive  action  of  God  imma- 
nent, incarnate,  and  transcendent,  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world. 


CHRISTIAN  BAPTISM  103 

In  the  sacrament  of  baptism  we  are  taught  how  we 
enter  the  Kingdom  of  God's  eternal  Hfe ;  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  Holy  Communion  we  are  taught  how  we  are 
nourished  in  this  Kingdom  of  eternal  life.  The  es- 
sence of  baptism  is  that  it  is  the  extension  of  the  in- 
carnation; the  essence  of  the  Holy  Communion  is 
that  it  is  the  extension  of  the  resurrection.  This  in- 
carnate life  of  God,  which  is  the  Church  of  God,  has  the 
power  to  take  the  new-born  child  and  mould  his  charac- 
ter into  that  of  God,  as  the  state  can  mould  the  for- 
eigner into  the  citizen.  There  pour  into  our  Repub- 
lic, year  by  year,  representatives  of  every  nation  of 
Europe.  They  come  here.  Englishmen,  Germans, 
Irish,  Swedes,  Poles,  and  Italians.  Their  nationality 
is  stamped  upon  them,  so  that  simply  by  looking  at 
them  we  know  that  this  one  comes  from  Germany,  this 
one  comes  from  Ireland,  and  this  one  from  Italy. 
But  we  make  them  all  Americans.  They  lose  their  na- 
tional traits  of  character  and  national  features  of  face, 
because  we  put  into  them  the  American  spirit  which 
stamps  them  with  the  American  face.  We  regenerate 
them,  we  make  them  over  again,  we  make  Americans 
out  of  them.  And  just  as  America  has  the  power  of 
making  of  all  nations  one  American  nation,  so  the 
Church  has  the  power  of  making  all  peoples  a  new 
people,  a  Christian  people,  by  baptizing  them  into 
God. 

If  you  wish  to  make  your  child  a  Frenchman,  you 
must  rear  him  in  France ;  you  cannot  rear  him  in 
America  and  make  a  Frenchman  out  of  him  at  the 
same  time.  If  you  wish  to  make  your  child  a  savage, 
let  savages  have  the  rearing  and  the  making  of  him, 


I04  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

and  to  be  sure  he  will  be  baptized  into  the  savage  spirit 
and  be  made  a  savage  too.  In  like  manner,  do  we  wish 
ourselves  and  our  children  to  be  partakers  of  the 
spiritual  nature  of  God,  then  by  baptism  we  must 
make  them  children  of  God.  If  we  wish  our  children 
to  become  scholars,  we  must  send  them  to  school  where 
scholars  are  made.  We  must  send  them  into  the 
atmosphere,  the  environment  of  scholarship.  They 
must  associate  with  scholars,  in  order  to  imbibe  their 
spirit  and  become  scholars.  They  must  be  set  to  doing 
those  things,  the  very  doing  of  which  will  make  the 
scholar  grow  in  them. 

So  if  we  wish  them  to  become  Christians,  the  first 
thing  to  do  is  what  St.  Paul  did,  arise  and  be  baptized 
into  fellowship  with  Christ,  that  we  may  imbibe  His 
spirit  and  learn  the  secret  of  His  life,  and  do  those 
things,  the  very  doing  of  which  make  us  grow  into 
His  likeness.  To-day  people  are  standing  without  the 
Church  of  God  waiting !  waiting  !  to  become  Chris- 
tians !  before  baptism  into  the  Church !  Why,  if 
we  ever  wish  to  become  Christians,  it  is  that  baptism 
with  which  the  Church  of  God  baptizes  us  that  makes 
us  Christians  ! 

A  boy  stands  looking  into  the  water  where  his 
fellows  are  swimming  and  says :  ^'I  wish  I  could  swim 
too,  but  I  am  not  going  into  the  water  until  I  learn 
how  to  swim."  His  companions  shout  back  to  him : 
"  If  you  ever  learn  how  to  swim,  you  will  never  learn 
out  there  on  land.  Come  into  the  water  and  learn  how 
to  swim  by  trying  to  swim.  A  person  never  learned 
to  swim  in  any  other  way." 

Christians  are  made  as  swimmers  are  made.    They 


CHRISTIAN   BAPTISM  105 

are  not  made  by  standing  out  in  the  world  wishing  that 
they  were  Christians  too,  and  trying  by  their  unaided 
powers  to  live  a  spiritual  life;  but  they  are  made 
Christians  by  coming  into  the  Church,  and  doing  those 
things  which  God  has  appointed,  the  very  doing  of 
which  makes  Christians.  How  are  soldiers  made? 
They  are  made  by  going  into  the  camp  first  and  being 
drilled  into  soldiers  afterwards.  Soldiers  are  made 
inside  the  camp,  not  outside  the  camp.  How  are 
Masons,  Odd  Fellows,  and  Knights  of  Pithias  made  ? 
They  are  not  made  outside  the  lodge  but  inside  the 
lodge. 

We  look  around  and  see  that  no  one  insists  upon  a 
child  being  a  learned  person  in  order  to  gain  entrance 
into  a  school,  because  the  school  is  established  for  the 
express  purpose  of  giving  knowledge  to  the  ignorant. 
We  look  around  and  see  that  no  one  insists  upon  a 
person  being  a  full-fledged  soldier  in  order  to  gain  en- 
trance into  West  Point,  because  West  Point  is  estab- 
lished to  train  him  in  the  art  of  soldierhood  after  his 
entrance.  How  sorely  puzzled  we  must  be,  then,  to 
find  it  seriously  insisted  upon  that  one  must  be  a  Chris- 
tian before  baptism  into  the  Church,  when  the  very 
mission  of  the  Church  is  to  make  Christians  as  the 
school  makes  scholars. 

The  more  we  inquire  into  it  the  more  confident  we 
become  that  this  confusion  is  caused,  and  grows  out  of, 
a  very  grave  misapprehension  of  what  the  Church  is ; 
by  making  the  Church  a  mere  human  organization 
like  John's  collection  of  disciples;  and  identifying 
Christian  baptism  with  John's  baptism.  While  in 
reality  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  two  things  more 


io6  THE   CHURCH    UNIVERSAL 

distinctly  unlike  than  John's  baptism  and  Christian 
baptism,  the  Christian  Church  and  John's  collection  of 
disciples.  The  difference  between  the  two  was  dis- 
tinctly stated  by  St.  Paul  when  he  rebaptized  some  of 
John's  disciples  with  the  form  of  Christian  baptism. 
The  account  is  found  in  Acts  19 :  1-5.  ''And  it  came 
to  pass  that,  while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth,  Paul,  having 
passed  through  the  upper  coasts,  came  to  Ephesus, 
and  finding  certain  disciples  there,  he  said  unto  them. 
Have  ye  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye  believed  ? 
And  they  said  unto  him,  we  have  not  so  much  as  heard 
whether  there  be  any  Holy  Ghost.  And  he  said  unto 
them,  Unto  what  then  were  you  baptized  ?  And  they 
said  unto  him,  unto  John's  baptism.  Then  said  Paul, 
John  baptized  with  the  baptism  of  repentance,  saying 
unto  the  people  that  they  should  believe  on  him  who 
should  come  after  him,  that  is,  on  Christ- Jesus.  When 
they  heard  this,  they  were  baptized  into  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus." 

From  the  foregoing  we  see  that  St.  Paul  held  the  two 
things  to  be  so  distinct  and  totally  unlike  that,  although 
the  disciples  had  received  John's  baptism,  they  had  not 
received  Christian  baptism,  and  must  be  rebaptized. 
What  is  the  difference  between  the  two  ?  The  differ- 
ence between  the  two  is :  — 

(i)  John's  baptism  did  not  transcend,  but  was  a  re- 
formation of,  the  psychic  life  of  man.  He  had  no  other 
life  to  give. 

(2)  Christian  baptism  transcends  our  psychic  life, 
and  makes  us  new  creatures  by  a  spiritual  birth.  It  is 
the  life  Christ  has  to  give. 


CHRISTIAN   BAPTISM  107 

John  preached  repentance  unto  the  people,  and 
when  they  repented,  he  baptized  them  with  the  form  of 
his  baptism,  to  make  them  ready  to  receive  the  Messiah 
when  He  came.  His  baptism  was  the  sign  of  a  past  act; 
something  already  wrought  out  in  the  soul,  a  psychic 
repentance.  Christian  baptism  is  not  the  sacrament 
of  a  past  act ;  of  something  already  accomplished  in  the 
soul  of  man,  but  it  is  the  evolution  of  a  new  spiritual 
birth  in  the  soul  by  means  of  water,  blood,  and 
Spirit,  so  that  we  may  have  future  growth  into  the  ful- 
ness of  Christ- Jesus. 

John's  baptism  made  a  man  nothing  that  he  was 
not  already  before  his  baptism.  It  evolved  no  new 
fountains  of  life  in  the  soul,  but  left  the  man  to  fight 
the  battles  of  life  in  the  strength  of  his  old  psychic 
life  as  before.  Christian  baptism  is  into  God  that  we 
may  have,  as  the  result  of  this  spiritual  birth,  the 
highest  spiritual  life  of  God  Himself  in  our  souls,  as 
the  power  with  which  to  fight  the  battles  of  life. 
Lastly  the  distinction  between  Christian  baptism  and 
John's  baptism  is  a  distinction  of  time.  The  one  came 
before  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  other  could 
only  come  after,  for  Christian  baptism  was  impossible 
by  the  Church  until  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  at  which  time  the  Apostles 
received  their  Christian  baptism.  When  St.  Peter 
baptized  the  three  thousand  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  was  there 
administered  the  sacrament  of  Christian  baptism.  In 
conclusion,  let  us  get  clearly  and  unalterably  fixed  in 
our  minds  the  fundamental  life  principle  of  the  Church 
of  God. 


io8  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 


The  Church  is  the  kingdom  of  God ;  and  this  king- 
dom, as  all  other  kingdoms,  has  the  power  of  repro- 
ducing itself.  As  America  takes  in  the  EngHshman, 
German,  and  Dane,  and  by  baptizing  them  into  the 
American  spirit  makes  them  Americans,  so  the  Church 
has  the  power  of  baptizing  mankind  into  the  life  of 
God,  making  them  Christians.  That  Process  by 
which  a  foreigner  is  made  an  American  is  called  natu- 
ralization; that  process  by  which  we  are  made  Chris- 
tians is  called  baptism. 

II 

If  a  man  wishes  to  become  an  American,  he  cannot 
do  so  by  living  in  Europe.  He  must  live  here,  and,  by 
living  among  us,  go  through  a  process  of  naturalization, 
or  baptism,  into  our  life.  Thus  we  make  an  American 
out  of  him.  So  if  a  man  wishes  to  become  a  Christian, 
he  must  transcend  the  environment  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  world,  and  by  baptism  into  the  kingdom  of  God, 
a  Christian  will  be  made  out  of  him.  And  then  inside 
the  kingdom  we  continually  dwell  in  this  spiritual  en- 
vironment of  God's  life,  which  will  make  the  spiritual 
man  grow  in  us  into  the  full  stature  of  a  Christian. 
From  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  we  go  on  to  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Confirmation,  in  which  we  make  this  spiritual 
life  given  us  in  Baptism  our  very  own  personal  self- 
conscious  life.  From  the  Sacrament  of  Confirmation 
we  go  on  to  the  Sacrament  of  Holy  Communion  with 
God ;  so,  with  faith  and  prayer,  repentance  and  sacri- 
fice, we  work  out  our  salvation,  at  first,  with  fear  and 
trembling,  and,  finally,  with  self-confidence  and  cer- 
tainty. 


IX 

BAPTISM    OF    SPIRIT,    WATER,    AND    BLOOD    UNIVERSAL 

Question.    Who  gave  you  this  name  ? 

Answer.  My  sponsors  in  baptism ;  wherein  I  was 
made  a  member  of  Christ,  a  child  of  God,  and  an  in- 
heritor of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

In  the  use  I  make  of  the  Flood  Narrative,  which  is 
used  in  the  office  of  baptism,  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  it  is  '^mythical"  or  ^'historical,"  as  what  I 
wish  to  show  you  is  the  eternal  truth  which,  either 
view  you  take  of  it,  it  contains.  It  is  sufficient  for  my 
purpose  that  I  use  it,  as  it  is  used  in  the  baptismal  ser- 
vice, as  a  ''figure  of  speech." 

Without  further  comment  I  would  like  to  rivet  your 
attention  upon  these  words:  "Wherein  few,  that  is, 
eight  souls  were  saved  by  water,  the  like  figure  where- 
unto  baptism  doth  also  now  save  us."  This  at  once 
carries  us  back  to  the  days  of  Noah,  in  which  the  long 
suffering  of  God  waited  while  the  ark  was  preparing, 
and  presents  something  well  worth  our  while  to  inquire 
into  —  the  same  outward  and  visible  thing  saving  some 
and  destroying  others. 

We  are  perfectly  familiar  with  how  water  became 
the  agent  of  destruction  by  drowning  the  world  that 
remained  out  of  the  ark,  but  we  are  not  so  familiar 
with  how  water  saved  the  eight  souls. 

109 


no  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

We  understand  perfectly  that,  if  we  have  a  basket  of 
decaying  apples,  and  in  that  basket  of  decaying  apples 
there  are  eight  sound  apples,  the  only  way  in  which 
these  sound  apples  can  be  saved  is  to  separate  the 
sound  apples  from  the  rotten  apples.  So  the  flood 
was  the  outward  visible  material  means  by  which  the 
invisible  God  separated  the  righteous  souls  of  Noah's 
family  from  the  mass  of  corrupt  souls  surrounding 
them.  Water,  by  destroying  the  mass  of  morally  cor- 
rupt souls  in  the  world,  saved  the  eight  righteous  souls, 
by  giving  them  a  new  world  free  from  the  moral  contami- 
nation of  these  corrupt  souls.  The  destruction  of  this 
hopelessly  corrupt  race  gave  humanity  a  new  start  in 
the  environment  of  a  new  world  in  which  to  work  out 
its  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling.  In  this  *' sym- 
bolic event"  we  see  that  water  is  both  the  means  of 
God's  salvation  and  destruction  of  the  world.  The 
same  is  true  in  all  such  wars  as  the  French  Revolution. 
The  same  is  true  in  all  the  destructive  agencies  which 
we  see  at  work  in  the  world  of  nature.  They  destroy 
and  at  the  same  time  build  up. 

It  requires  only  the  most  superficial  knowledge  of 
the  world's  history  to  see  how  water  again  and  again 
has  been  God's  means  of  saving  the  world  by  separating 
the  righteous  from  the  unrighteous.  Most  signally 
was  this  illustrated  in  the  life  of  Israel  in  the  passage 
of  the  Red  Sea. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  the  Red  Sea  is 
like  a  snail  after  it  has  cast  its  shell.  It  ends  in  its 
northern  extremity  in  two  long  narrow  gulfs,  corre- 
sponding to  what  the  children  call  the  ''feelers"  of  the 
snail.     One  of  these  narrow  gulfs,  terminating  in  the 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  iii 

sand  of  the  desert,  was  that  portion  the  Israelites 
crossed. 

On  one  side  of  the  encamped  hosts  of  Israel  were  the 
mountains,  on  the  other  impassable  swamps,  in  the 
rear  the  Egyptian  army,  and  in  front  the  waters  of 
the  Red  Sea;  thus  they  seemingly  waited  in  a  death 
trap,  only  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians  in 
the  morning,  and  be  driven  back  again  into  bondage 
in  Egypt.  But  Moses  knew  the  topography  of  that 
country  too  well  to  be  thus  caught  in  a  death  trap. 
Directly  in  front  of  him,  stretching  across  that  narrow 
bay,  there  was  an  elevated  bank  of  sand  over  which  at 
low  tide  there  were  only  a  few  feet  of  water.  Napoleon 
during  his  campaign  in  Egypt  came  very  near  losing  his 
life  at  this  spot  in  the  Red  Sea.  At  low  tide,  and  when 
the  wind  is  blowing  from  the  northeast,  it  is  very  easy 
to  cross  at  this  place,  but  at  the  turning  of  the  tide  the 
water  rises  so  rapidly  that  it  is  exceedingly  dangerous. 
Napoleon  was  warned  of  this  by  his  guides,  but  paid  no 
attention  to  their  warning,  until,  upon  recrossing,  the 
water  began  to  rise  so  rapidly  that  he  came  very  near 
losing  his  life. 

While  Moses  and  the  Israelites  were  waiting,  en- 
camped by  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea,  to  cross  by  the 
morning  Hght,  Moses  was  praying  to  Almighty  God  for 
help,  as  was  the  custom  of  Washington  and  Jackson, 
and  the  effectual  fervent  prayer  of  the  righteous  man 
availed  much  then  as  now.  The  account  reads :  ''And 
the  Lord  caused  the  sea  to  go  back  by  a  strong  east 
wind  all  that  night,  and  made  the  sea  dry  land."  The 
waters  were  divided  by  this  elevated  ridge  of  dry  sand 
running  across  this  narrow  inlet,  and  there  was  a  wall 


112  THE    CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

of  water  on  their  right  hand  and  on  their  left  hand, 
as  the  strong  east  wind  pushed  and  piled  the  waters 
down  the  Red  Sea,  leaving  this  ridge  of  sand  dry  land. 
During  the  early  morning  the  Israelites  crossed  over, 
and  as  soon  as  the  Egyptians  found  out  what  was  tak- 
ing place,  they  pushed  on  after  them,  only  to  have 
their  chariot  wheels  sink  to  the  hubs  in  the  soft  wet 
sand  of  the  sea,  and  in  the  furious  plunging  of  the 
horses  the  wheels  broke  off  at  the  axles ;  so  the  Egyp- 
tian host  was  entangled  and  lost  in  the  sea. 

With  the  return  of  the  morning  the  wind  died  down, 
the  tide  arose,  and  the  sea  returned  with  all  his 
strength  and  the  Egyptians  fled  against  it,  but  of  their 
chariots  and  their  horsemen  and  all  the  host  of  Pharaoh 
which  came  into  the  sea,  not  so  much  as  one  of  them 
remained.  Thus  the  Lord  overthrew  the  Egyptians  in 
the  sea.  Thus  again  did  water,  the  outward  and 
visible  means  of  God,  save  the  righteous  and  destroy 
the  wicked. 

With  that  sea  of  water  rolling  between  Israel  and  the 
land  of  the  Nile,  the  sphinx,  and  the  Pharaoh,  it  sepa- 
rated like  a  living  flame  of  fire  the  lives  of  the  two 
peoples  for  centuries.  The  Israelites  had  served  their 
long  apprenticeship  in  the  arts  and  industries  of 
Egypt,  and  with  Moses  at  their  head,  learned  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,  were  now  to  begin  their  new 
career  of  spiritual  education,  beginning  with  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  Law  on  Mt.  Sinai,  continued  through 
the  forty  years'  wandering  in  the  wilderness,  and 
fifteen  hundred  years  under  prophet,  priest,  and 
king,  which  was  consummated  in  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah. 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  113 

If  they  had  lived  in  the  land  of  Pharaoh,  this  spiritual 
education  of  the  race  would  have  been  an  impossibility. 
They  would  have  been  crushed  and  turned  into  a 
mummy  by  the  preponderating  and  powerful  civiliza- 
tion of  Egypt.  Israel  must  come  out  of  Egypt,  and 
the  lives  of  the  two  nations  be  separated.  Israel 
must  be  educated  by  the  desert  wilds  and  the  mountain 
fastnesses  before  becoming  fit  for  self-conscious  union 
with  the  living  God. 

When  Israel  crossed  the  Red  Sea,  her  old  life  ended 
and  her  new  life  began.  The  material  means  God  used 
was  the  sea,  and  to  show  how  God  uses  the  same  means 
in  all  time  to  accomplish  the  same  results,  connect 
just  for  a  moment  our  own  history  with  that  of  Israel. 
1492  years  before  Jesus  was  born,  Moses  led  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  out  of  Egypt  and  crossed  the  Red  Sea ; 
1492  years  after  Jesus  was  born  Columbus  crossed  an- 
other sea  upon  the  modern  miracle  of  white-winged 
ships,  and  discovered  another  promised  land.  As 
Egypt  1492  years  before  Christ  bore  in  her  bosom  two 
irreconcilable  civilizations  and  spiritual  ideals,  repre- 
sented by  Pharaoh  and  Moses,  so  Europe  1492  years 
after  Christ  bore  in  her  bosom  the  two  irreconcilable 
civilizations  and  ideals  of  kingcraft  and  democracy. 
Again  and  again  had  the  issue  been  tried  in  Europe 
between  kingcraft  and  democracy,  but  always  in  favor 
of  kingcraft.  But  under  the  providence  of  God,  when 
in  the  fulness  of  time  the  issue  was  tried  in  America, 
the  greatest  friend  and  ally  that  America  had  was  God's 
eternal  sacrament  of  life-giving  water,  this  time  the 
broad  waves  of  the  stormy  Atlantic  rolling  three  thou- 
sand miles  between   them,   without  which  America 


114  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

never  would  have  been  free.  As  the  stars  in  their 
courses  fought  against  Jabin  at  the  brook  of  Kison,  as 
the  winds  and  the  waves  fought  against  Pharaoh  at  the 
Red  Sea,  so  in  the  American  Revolution  the  broad 
Atlantic  fought  for  American  freedom.  Too  long  have 
we  been  accustomed  to  divorce  God  from  the  life  of 
nature  and  the  life  of  humanity,  and  by  a  mighty  giilf 
separate  spiritual  life  from  material  life,  saying  that 
nature  and  human  nature  are  unfit  for  the  habitation 
of  the  living  God.  If  people  wish  to  do  this,  of  course 
they  have  a  perfect  right  to  do  so ;  they  have  a  perfect 
right  to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line  between  the  spiritual 
and  material  worlds  and  call  the  one  natural  and  the 
other  supernatural.  They  have  the  perfect  right  to  do 
this,  but  they  have  no  right  to  claim  that  they  get 
such  a  view  from  the  Bible,  which  teaches  that  God  is 
omnipresent,  maketh  the  flames  of  fire  his  ministering 
spirits,  Cometh  walking  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind, 
and  makes  our  bodies  the  temple  of  His  Holy  Spirit. 

There  is  not  a  square  inch  of  matter  in  the  universe 
which  is  not  the  embodiment  of  spirit,  matter  being 
the  ever  outward  and  visible  sign  through  which  the 
ever  invisible  spirit  works.  God  has  three  relations  to 
us,  corresponding  to  the  three  persons  of  the  Trinity. 
God  the  Father  creates  us,  and  then  carries  forward  and 
develops  our  spiritual  education  by  the  double  process 
of  the  inward  and  purely  spiritual  communion  of  His 
still  small  voice  in  our  souls,  and  by  the  outward  and 
visible  presence  of  His  incarnate  life  as  Jesus  and  in 
His  Church,  and  by  His  embodied  immanent  life  in  the 
world  of  nature. 

I  now  wish  to  concentrate  your  minds  upon  the 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  115 

fundamental  truth  we  have  reached  that  God  creates 
and  carries  forward  our  spiritual  growth  unto  perfec- 
tion by  acting  upon  our  souls  from  within  and  from 
without,  inwardly  by  the  inspiration  and  creative  act 
of  His  Spirit  and  outwardly  by  the  world  of  man  and 
the  world  of  nature,  so  that  we  find  these  three  factors 
uniting  to  make  every  child  that  is  born  in  this  world : 
(i)  God,  (2)  human  persons,  (3)  the  world  of  nature. 
This  is  the  threefold  way  the  one  God,  immanent,  in- 
carnate, and  transcendent,  creates  us  and  makes  us 
grow  in  wisdom,  and  in  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God 
and  man.  If  this  is  a  religious  truth,  it  must  be  imiver- 
sal  and  necessarily  act  through  all  time  and  all  space 
and  in  all  history.  This  is  exactly  what  we  find  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  beginning  with  savage  life  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden  and  then  sweeping  onward  in  the 
world's  history,  with  an  ever  higher  and  higher  evolu- 
tion until  the  spirit  of  nature  and  with  supreme  con- 
trol over  the  powers  of  nature,  and  the  spirit  of  man 
and  with  supreme  control  over  the  spirit  of  man,  and 
the  spirit  of  God  and  with  supreme  control  over  all 
things  in  heaven  —  in  other  words,  God  immanent, 
incarnate,  and  transcendent,  culminate  bodily  in  Jesus 
to  whom  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  earth  are  given. 
We  will  now  see  these  working  separately  in  the 
world's  history  until  in  the  fulness  of  time  this  con- 
summation is  wrought  out  in  the  incarnation  of  God. 
To  begin  with  the  first  human  family  in  the  world,  let 
us  note  the  influences  which  make  the  character  of  the 
child  born  in  that  family.  It  is  the  Spirit  of  God  act- 
ing through  the  father  and  the  mother,  through  the 
world  of  nature  around  him,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  tran- 


ii6  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

scendent  acting  directly  upon  the  spirit  of  the  child. 
As  generation  after  generation  is  born  into  the  world, 
each  of  these  threefold  influences  goes  on  acting  more 
and  more  powerfully  upon  the  race  as  Eden  recedes  in 
the  past,  and  as  man,  for  better  or  for  worse,  more  and 
more  comes  into  possession  of  the  divine  gift  of  free 
will.  As  to  whether  these  forces  will  be  for  his  weal 
or  his  woe,  as  they  go  on  acting  more  and  more  power- 
fully, will  depend  upon  how  that  free  will  is  exercised. 
If  that  free  will  is  exercised  to  abuse,  misuse,  and 
desecrate  these  God-given  powers  intended  for  our  up- 
building, they  will  become  the  sources  of  our  destruc- 
tion. Bread  rightly  used  is  the  source  of  health  and 
life.  Bread  abused  brings  gluttony  and  death.  Disobey 
the  Spirit  of  God  and  He  leaves  us  to  our  own  devices; 
abuse  nature  or  human  nature  and  they  will  finally 
turn  upon  us  and  destroy  us.  So  all  along  the  course 
of  human  history  we  see  the  shores  of  time  strewn  with 
the  wrecks  of  individuals  and  of  empires  who  have 
taken  the  downward  path  of  devolution  instead  of  the 
upward  flight  of  evolution.  I  do  not  care  to  trace 
this  downward  tendency  into  devolution  which  we  see 
all  aroimd  us.  I  will  trace  for  you  the  upward  flight 
of  humanity  as  portrayed  for  us  in  the  Jewish  race,  be- 
ginning with  Abraham,  in  whom  we  find  a  newer 
and  higher  creation  of  the  divine  Spirit  than  in  his 
kindred  and  in  his  countrymen.  Acting  under  the 
divine  guidance  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  he  leaves  a  thickly 
populated  country  of  uncongenial  spirits,  and  under 
other  skies  as  a  keeper  of  flocks  living  near  to  nature's 
heart,  he  begins  life  anew  in  that  land,  which,  from  the 
time  he  stepped  upon  it,  became  the  sacred  soil  of 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  117 

Palestine.  When  his  heaven-sent  son,  Isaac,  was  born, 
the  human  race  began  to  tread  higher  table  lands  of 
spirituality.  The  Spirit  of  God  from  within  and  from 
without  through  the  human  society  of  his  parents  and 
the  world  of  nature  around  him  acted  more  effectively 
and  more  powerfully  perhaps  than  upon  any  child  born 
in  the  world  up  to  this  time. 

That  these  channels  of  communion  might  be  kept 
open  to  his  descendants,  note  how  carefully  Abraham 
sends  back  to  his  father's  people  for  Isaac's  wife,  and 
Jacob  gets  his  wife  from  the  same  source,  until  the  type 
becomes  fixed  —  so  fixed  that  from  that  time  until  this 
time  the  face  of  the  Jew  has  not  changed ;  so  fixed  that 
whether  he  treads  the  Arctic  snows  or  India's  coral 
strand,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  walk  the  earth. 
So  arose  somewhere  in  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  the 
beginnings  of  that  inspired  race,  whose  type  became  so 
fixed  in  the  land  of  Palestine  that  they  became  the 
spiritual  torchbearers  of  the  world. 

I  would  furthermore  ask  you  to  note,  as  the  in- 
ward influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  touched  the  spirits 
of  the  most  highly  developed  ones  of  this  race  and  in- 
spired them,  how  they  laid  stress  upon  keeping  pure  the 
race  and  returning  to  their  country.  With  Moses  it 
became  such  a  passion  that  he  spent  his  life  in  leading 
them  back  through  the  sandy  deserts  and  rocky  wastes 
to  their  native  land.  You  will  also  notice  that  every 
inspired  prophet  of  that  race  had  as  the  burden  of  his 
message :  keep  open  the  channels  of  communion  with 
God  (i)  by  inward  purity  of  personal  life,  (2)  by  keep- 
ing the  race  pure  by  non-intermarriage  with  other 
races,  (3)  by  dwelling  in  Palestine. 


ii8  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Why  this  age-long  and  persistent  dwelling  upon  the 
outward  and  visible  ?  Why  not  cultivate  the  inward 
and  spiritual  and  let  the  outward  and  visible  go  ? 
Simply  because  it  is  impossible.  The  prophets  of 
Israel  were  inspired  enough  to  know  that  God  does 
use  the  outward  and  visible  to  communicate  Himself 
to  man,  and  that  he  who  begins  to  neglect  the  outward 
and  visible  always  ends  by  losing  the  inward  and 
spiritual,  as  he  who  breaks  the  earthen  vessel  not  only 
loses  the  vessel  but  the  priceless  water  which  it  con- 
tains. 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  this  age-long 
stress  laid  upon  the  outward  and  visible  been  more 
richly  rewarded  and  more  fully  justified;  for  in  that 
wonderful  land,  an  epitome  of  every  variety  of  scenery 
and  climate  in  the  world,  ranging  from  the  snow-capped 
Hermon  in  the  north  to  the  torrid  valley  of  the  Jordan 
in  the  south,  in  that  marvellous  race  produced  and  edu- 
cated in  that  marvellous  land,  the  inspiration  of  God 
reached  high-water  mark,  until  God  finally  incarnated 
Himself  and  walked  the  hills  of  Galilee. 

Carefully  note  that  in  the  incarnation  of  God  as 
Jesus  we  see  no  new  powers  —  neither  material,  nor 
psychical,  nor  spiritual  —  which  have  not  always  been 
acting  and  will  never  cease  to  act.  These  are  but  the 
world-old  and  eternally  creative  and  begetting  activi- 
ties of  God  deepened,  intensified,  and  brought  to  per- 
fection of  culmination  in  His  incarnation. 

Remember  the  channels  through  which  God  has 
always  been  acting  to  create  and  develop  the  spiritual- 
ity of  the  race :  (i)  by  His  Spirit  acting  directly  from 
within,  (2)  outwardly  through  the  personality  of  man, 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  119 

and  (3)  the  world  of  nature.  God  acted  powerfully 
for  the  upbuilding  of  the  race  through  the  personality 
of  such  men  as  Moses,  Elijah,  David,  and  Isaiah  — 
but  however  greatly  never  perfectly  —  all  that  they 
are  separately  and  more  than  they  are  all  combined 
is  in  Jesus,  in  whom  for  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  the  world  God  so  perfectly,  so  completely,  so 
finally,  and  so  absolutely  revealed  Himself  that  he 
who  gazes  upon  the  face  of  Jesus  gazes  upon  that  of 
the  Father. 

I  would  furthermore  ask  you  to  observe  that  God's 
creative  and  spiritually  begetting  activity,  inwardly 
and  invisibly  and  outwardly  and  visibly,  by  His  Spirit 
through  the  word  of  nature  and  human  personality,  was 
carried  to  perfection  in  Jesus,  not  to  end  with  Him,  but 
through  Him  to  be  made  universal.  To  miss  this  is 
to  utterly  misunderstand  and  destroy  the  message  and 
meaning  of  Christianity. 

Again  let  me  point  out  to  you,  as  soon  as  He 
ascended  into  heaven,  how  the  Spirit  of  God  continued 
operating  without  cessation.  Ten  days  after  His  As- 
cension the  Spirit  of  God  descended  upon  the  human 
race  with  a  might  and  a  power  that  it  had  never  known 
before  as  a  whole,  convicting  the  world  of  sin  and  of 
righteousness,  and,  by  taking  the  things  of  Christ  and 
bringing  them  to  the  remembrance  of  the  Apostles, 
opened  their  eyes  to  the  true  significance  of  the  Lord's 
Christ.  Also  the  other  age-long  visible  channels 
through  which  God  communicates  His  Spirit  were  em- 
phasized with  their  deepest  and  most  perfect  signifi- 
cance —  for  when  Jesus  took  a  piece  of  water  and  said 
baptize  humanity  into  God  with  this,  and  took  a  piece 


I20  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

of  bread  and  said  this  is  my  body  —  nature  swung  in 
the  mind  of  man  into  its  rightful  place  and  relation  to 
deity,  as  the  visible  means  through  which  the  invisible 
God  creates,  redeems,  and  sanctifies  us. 

So  through  the  man  Jesus  there  comes  the  perfect 
revelation  of  nature,  of  man,  and  of  God ;  for  in  Him 
we  find  all  the  evolution  of  the  ages  ending  in  the  incar- 
nation in  Him  of  the  powers  of  nature,  of  man,  and  of 
God.  But  in  all  this  we  see  nothing  new  acting  for  the 
first  time,  for  God  began  acting  upon  and  commimicat- 
ing  Himself  to  man  through  the  spirit  of  nature,  and 
the  spirit  of  man,  from  the  moment  that  the  first  family 
came  into  the  world ;  and  this  went  on  acting  with  a 
cumulative  force  and  power  through  all  the  ages,  until 
at  some  time  it  must  reach  perfection,  which  it  did  in 
Jesus. 

With  Him  the  old  order  ended  and  the  new  began. 
He  cut  time  in  two  and  tied  it  in  the  middle.  That 
which  had  taken  all  time  and  all  ages  and  all  men  and 
God  to  make  in  Him,  He  would  use  all  ages  hence- 
forward to  reproduce  in  all  men,  so  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  world  to  be  the  same  after  His  birth 
as  before  it. 

The  mission  of  Jesus  is  to  indwell  in  every  man  and 
every  man  in  Him,  so  that  the  type  of  life  born  with 
Him  in  the  world  will  not  cease  to  be  in  the  world  after 
He  has  transcended  the  world.  The  means  which  He 
had  at  His  disposal  were  the  outward  and  visible  world 
of  nature  and  of  man  and  of  the  invisible  world  of  God 
transcendent.  He  used  all  these,  and  began  by  select- 
ing out  of  the  mass  of  His  coimtrymen  the  best  avail- 
able material  that  He  could  find.     The  twelve  Apostles 


BAPTISM   UNIVERSAL  121 

He  gathered  around  Him,  ate  with  them,  drank  with 
them,  talked  with  them,  lived  with  them,  suffered  with 
them,  and  died  for  them,  so  that  at  the  end  of  three 
years  His  spirit  passed  into  them  and  became  their 
spirit.  On  the  Day  of  Pentecost  that  spirit  which 
came  to  birth  in  Him  came  to  birth  in  them. 

So  we  hear  Him  saying  unto  them,  "As  my  Father 
hath  sent  me,  even  so  have  I  sent  you  "  —  as  I  have 
reproduced  my  life  in  you,  I  now  send  you  to  reproduce 
my  life  in  that  of  the  world  by  baptizing  every  creature 
into  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  — 
"and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  imto  the  end  of 
the  world."  So  the  Church  was  foimded,  the  divine 
organization,  the  outward  and  visible  body  of  this 
inward  and  new  type  of  Hfe  born  in  the  world  with 
Jesus.  So  after  the  Christian  Church  was  founded 
we  have  two  types  of  life  in  the  world,  and  we  are  made 
partakers  of  both  by  the  forces  and  powers  outside 
and  beyond  ourselves.  By  our  psychical  birth  we 
are  made  partakers  of  the  Adam  t5^e  of  life,  by  our 
spiritual  birth,  which  the  Church  generates  in  us  by 
means  of  Spirit,  water,  and  blood,  we  are  made  par- 
takers of  the  Christ  type  of  life.  These  two  types  of 
life  are  so  distinct  in  the  world  that  they  cannot  be 
hid  but  are  known  of  all  men.  In  the  tropical  seas 
between  the  two  Americas  there  rises  the  wonderful 
gulf  stream 

"  Which  lips  our  southern  strand, 
And  through  the  cold,  untempered  ocean 
Pours  its  genial  streams, 
That  far  oflf  Arctic  shores 
May  sometimes  catch  upon  the  softened  breeze 
Strange  tropic  warmth  and  hints  of  summer  seas." 


122  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

As  that  vast  volume  of  tropic  water  keeps  together  in 
one  body,  different  in  temperature  and  in  color  through 
the  cold  Atlantic,  through  which  it  pours  and  changes 
the  climate  of  all  western  Europe,  so  the  Christian 
type  pours  through  the  history  of  the  world,  changing 
the  moral  and  spiritual  atmosphere  of  every  nation 
with  which  it  comes  in  contact. 

How  is  this  most  powerful,  spiritual,  subtle,  and 
divine  type  of  Hfe  born  in  the  world  ?  Does  it  generate 
itself  by  springing  up  spontaneously?  In  all  the 
history  of  Ufe  on  this  planet  we  know  of  nothing  bring- 
ing itself  to  birth.  Nothing  ever  borned  itself  natu- 
rally or  spiritually.  Every  child  coming  to  natural 
birth  has  a  father  and  a  mother,  and  every  child  spirit- 
ually born  has  a  spiritual  father  and  a  spiritual  mother 
—  God  the  spiritual  father  and  the  Church  the  spirit- 
ual mother.  So  the  Church's  answer  to  the  question 
how  our  spiritual  birth  is  generated  is:  by  baptism 
into  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost,  by  the  Church,  with  the  Spirit  and  water 
and  blood,  I  was  made  a  member  of  Christ,  a  child  of 
God,  and  an  inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Let  me  give  you  a  perfect  analogy.  In  the  spring 
of  the  year  when  the  gardening  fever  comes,  you  take 
some  seeds  in  your  hands,  go  out  into  the  garden,  dig 
some  holes,  drop  in  the  seeds  and  cover  them  up  and 
wait.  Just  as  soon  as  you  cover  those  seeds  the  earth 
seizes  hold  of  them,  begins  to  make  them  germinate, 
and  in  due  course  of  time  pushes  them  up  through  the 
soil.  Let  us  note  the  factors  which  bring  these  seeds 
to  birth.  There  was  the  seed,  the  man,  the  earth. 
Then  the  man  dug  a  hole,  put  the  seed  into  it  and 


BAPTISM  UNIVERSAL  123 

covered  it  up,  and  then  the  earth-spirit  brought  forth 
the  Hving  plant,  which  the  man  cultivated  afterwards. 
Here  you  have  the  visible  and  invisible  agents  by  which 
that  plant's  Hfe  is  developed. 

Now  in  the  place  of  the  seed  substitute  the  child, 
in  the  place  of  the  earth  the  Church,  for  the  earth 
spirit  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  you  have  the  visible  and 
invisible  factors  by  which  spiritual  life  is  developed 
into  self -consciousness  in  every  person.  In  conclu- 
sion, as  that  seed  can  do  nothing  to  born  itself,  neither 
can  the  child  do  anything  to  born  itself  spiritually  or 
psychically.  The  one  is  as  much  of  an  impossibility 
as  the  other.  Both  must  be  brought  about  by  forces 
and  powers  other  than  the  thing  born.  As  the  sun- 
light, rain,  and  heat  prepare  the  physical  conditions 
by  which  the  earth  is  enabled  to  bring  to  life  the  seeds 
in  her  bosom,  so  the  spiritual  forces  generated  in  the 
Christian  Church  are  the  means  by  which  the  miracle 
of  our  spiritual  birth  is  wrought  out  on  the  earth. 


X 

BAPTISM  AND    SEXLESS   BIRTH 

In  the  preceding  lectures  I  have  led  you  into  the 
holy  place  of  the  Sacramental  System  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  Let  me  now  lead  you  into  its  holy  of 
holies  by  showing  you  the  logical  and  necessary  con- 
nection between  Baptism  and  Virgin-birth.  Stated 
in  a  sentence  it  is  this :  Virgin-birth  is  the  method  of 
the  introduction  of  eternal  life ;  Baptism  is  the  repro- 
duction of  this  eternal  life  in  us ;  in  both  Baptism  and 
Virgin-birth  we  see  the  eternally  creative,  begetting, 
and  redemptive  action  of  God ;  in  both  we  see  the  sex- 
less Virgin  life  of  God,  man,  and  nature,  in  operation ; 
and,  finally,  both  are  spiritual  creations  and  begetting 
processes  which  transcend  all  psychic-sex  creations 
and  sex-begetting  processes  whatsoever.  So  that 
while  Virgin-birth  and  Baptism  are  in  reality  one  pro- 
cess, we  call  them  by  the  two  names  of  Virgin-birth 
and  Baptism,  reserving  the  former  to  describe  the 
introduction  of  all  Hfe,  the  latter  to  describe  the  repro- 
duction of  the  life  of  Christ  in  the  Christian  Church. 

What  is  a  Virgin  any  way  in  a  religious  sense  ? 
And  what  is  Virgin-birth  in  the  sense  that  Christianity 
uses  it?  Here  we  must  entirely  free  ourselves  from 
all  heathen  conceptions,  and  do  some  clear  and  exact 
thinking.     Virgin-birth  is  an  absolutely  sexless  birth. 

124 


BAPTISM   AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  125 

Virgin  life,  in  a  religious  sense,  is  life  which  forever 
transcends  sex,  and  in  which  sex-passion  can  never 
arise.  It  is  the  realm  of  the  eternal  life  of  God  which 
we  see  incarnate  as  Jesus  and  reproduced  as  the  spirit- 
ual life  of  the  Christian  Church. 

Perhaps  I  cannot  get  you  to  see  clearly  this  truth  in 
a  better  way  than  by  a  brief  explanation  of  these  words 
of  Jesus,  recorded  in  St.  Luke's  Gospel,  20 :  34-36. 
"And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  them,  the  children 
of  this  world  marry  and  are  given  in  marriage :  but 
they  which  shall  be  accounted  worthy  to  obtain  that 
world,  and  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  neither 
marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage :  neither  can  they 
die  any  more:  for  they  are  equal  unto  the  angels, 
and  are  children  of  God,  being  the  children  of  the 
resurrection." 

In  this  passage  Jesus  says  that  there  is  neither 
marriage  nor  giving  in  marriage  in  heaven,  because  in 
the  resurrection  we  transcend  and  cast  off  sex  which 
we  receive  by  our  psychic  sex-life  from  below.  We  in 
reality  have  sex  for  only  a  portion  of  our  life  and  soon 
cast  it  off,  either  by  old  age  or  by  death,  after  its  tem- 
porary purpose  has  been  served.  But,  whatever  else 
we  may  be,  we  are  always  essentially  spirit,  and,  as 
such,  we  have  a  sexless  self  which  transcends  sex  and  is 
always  Virgin,  for  there  are  always  depths  of  our  life 
in  which  sex-passion  never  stirs,  because  it  never  exists 
there.  We  instinctively  and  correctly  speak  of  the 
infant  as  neither  he  nor  she  but  it,  because  an  infant 
has  no  gender  but  is  sexless  — a  virgin,  in  the  rehgious 
meaning  of  this  word.  With  the  arising,  however, 
of  the  first  sex-passion,  the  child  in  addition  to  being 


126  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

it — sexless  spirit  which  it  never  ceases  to  be,  for  spirit 
as  such  is  always  sexless  —  becomes  he  or  she.  After 
the  temporary  use  of  our  brief  sex-life  has  served  its 
purpose,  which  is  for  reproducing  individuals  from 
below  by  psychic-sex  life,  we  cease  to  be  he  or  she  in  any 
sex  sense,  and  continue  our  sexless  virgin  life  which  we 
receive  from  above  by  our  spiritual  birth,  minus  our 
sex-life  which  we  receive  from  below} 

What  the  Church  means  by  Virgin-birth  and  Bap- 
tism is  so  profound  and  vast  a  subject,  that  the  ques- 
tion is  not  so  much  what  to  say  as  what  not  to  say  in 
the  process  of  condensation,  so  as  to  lose  nothing  in 
clearness  and  in  simpHcity,  and  at  the  same  time  re- 
veal the  magnitude  and  importance  of  these  tremen- 
dous subjects.  However,  as  best  I  can  I  shall  try  to 
do  this,  and  at  the  same  time  make  it  intensely  prac- 
tical for  you. 

I  often  meet  earnest-minded  spiritual  men  whose 
morals  are  on  a  par  with  the  best  men  in  the  Church, 
and  whose  Hves  in  a  high  degree  exemplify  the  virtues 
of  the  Christian  faith.  In  the  beginning  of  my  min- 
istry this  was  one  of  the  standing  wonders  to  me  — 
why  these  men  did  not  openly  confess  Christ  before 
the  world,  and  by  confirmation  unite  themselves  with 
some  organized  society  of  Christians,  and  by  doing  so 
multiply  their  power  for  good  in  the  world. 

Sometimes  these  men  are  frank  enough  to  tell  a 
minister,  after  they  have  come  to  know  him  well, 
where  the  trouble  lies.  They  say:  *'I  have  often 
thought  of  being  confirmed,  and  would  Hke  to  do  so ; 

1  For  a  detailed  discussion  of  Virgin-birth  see  Vol.  I,  "  Kinship  of 
God  and  Man." 


BAPTISM    AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  127 

but  before  I  can  do  so,  I  must  say  that  I  believe  that 
Jesus  had  a  sexless  birth.  I  cannot  say  I  believe  that 
without  saying  I  believe  what  I  do  not  believe;  and 
I  am  sure  that  if  I  am  damned  for  it  everlastingly,  God 
does  not  wish  me  to  say  I  beHeve  what  I  do  not  believe 
is  the  truth. 

''Besides,  I  cannot  see  how  believing  in  the  Virgin- 
birth  of  Jesus  can  make  me  or  any  one  else  a  better 
or  a  worse  man,  or  how  this  kind  of  birth  is  any  more 
necessary  for  God  to  incarnate  Himself  as  man  than 
any  other  kind  of  birth.  In  fact  I  never  have  been 
able  to  see  why  it  is  necessary  for  God  to  incarnate 
Himself  as  man  in  order  to  save  man.  Why  can  He 
not  save  man  by  staying  up  in  the  skies,  just  as  well 
as  by  coming  down  to  the  earth  and  becoming  man  ?" 

Now  suppose  some  one  really  in  earnest,  and  whom 
you  dearly  loved,  were  to  come  to  you  in  such  a  state 
of  mind,  how  would  you  help  him?  Would  you  be 
able,  as  St.  Peter  admonishes,  to  give  a  reason  to  every 
man  that  asketh  you  of  the  hope  that  is  in  you? 
As  best  I  can  I  shall  try  to  answer  these  questions. 

Why  one  should  object  to  Virgin-birth  is  not  because 
it  is  any  more  mysterious  than  any  other  kind  of  birth, 
but  because  it  seems  to  be  useless  because  it  is  falsely 
assumed  that  there  is  only  one  soKtary  instance  of 
Virgin-birth  in  the  history  of  the  incarnation  of  life, 
namely,  in  that  of  Jesus ;  but  I  shall  now  try  to  make 
plain  to  you  that  the  only  conceivable  way  in  which 
the  first  of  any  kingdom  of  life  can  get  into  this  world 
is  by  a  Virgin,  that  is,  a  sexless  birth.  If  this  can  be 
shown,  then  it  becomes  unreasonable  not  to  believe  in 
the  Virgin-birth  of  Jesus,  since  He  claims  to  be  the 


128  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

introduction  of  a  new  kingdom  of  life.  When  the 
question  is  so  stated,  Jesus  is  at  once  seen  to  be 
the  supreme  illustration  and  culmination,  and  not 
the  exception,  to  this  imiversal  law  of  the  introduction 
of  all  forms  of  life. 

But  the  objector  at  this  point  says :  ^'Once  upon  a 
time,  before  the  doctrine  of  evolution  was  demon- 
strated, it  was  reasonable  to  think  that  every  new 
type  of  Hfe  was  a  special  creation,  and  had  no  evolu- 
tionary relation  to  existing  lower  kinds  of  Hfe.  For 
instance,  directly  out  of  the  dust  the  grass  was  made, 
directly  out  of  the  dust  the  animals  were  made, 
directly  out  of  the  dust  Adam  was  made.  No  one  of 
these  types  derived  its  life  from  any  other  type  of 
created  Hfe.  But  now  we  can  no  longer  beHeve  this, 
for  we  know  that  evolution  is  as  true  as  gravitation, 
and  the  doctrine  of  evolution  teaches  that  all  higher 
forms  of  Hfe  grow  directly  out  of  lower  forms,  so  that 
they  are  organically  and  derivatively  related  in  one 
great  Hfe  series  from  the  dust  up  to  your  highest  man 
Jesus." 

To  which  I  reply :  ''You  say  what  any  man,  believ- 
ing as  you  beHeve,  must  say.  Let  me,  however,  say 
that  the  Christian  Church  beHeves  aU  that  you  be- 
Heve ;  but  to  be  thoroughly  rational,  that  is,  true  to  all 
the  facts  of  Hfe,  it  is  forced  to  beHeve  more.  The 
trouble  with  your  type  of  man  is  that  you  do  not  know, 
or  if  you  do,  you  ignore,  and  refuse  to  use  your  reason 
about  only  one  half  the  facts  of  Hfe  —  the  reproduc- 
tion of  incarnate  life,  which  of  course  is  a  sex  process. 
The  trouble  with  many  in  the  Church  is  that  they 
refuse  to  use  their  reason  at  all.     Between  the  two  the 


BAPTISM   AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  129 

Church  is  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea.  The 
man  who  refuses  to  use  his  reason  is  always  supersti- 
tious; the  man  who  uses  his  reason  about  only  one  half 
the  facts  of  Hfe  always  ends  as  a  skeptic.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  is  neither,  though  some  of  its  members 
are  both." 

If  we  would  be  led  astray,  neither  by  superstition 
nor  skepticism,  let  us  get  all  the  facts  of  life  before  we 
begin  to  reason  about  them.  The  reproduction  of 
life  is  one  half  of  the  facts,  the  introduction  of  Hfe  is 
the  other  half  of  the  facts  of  life.  Both  are  unbroken 
processes  from  the  dust  up  to  Jesus.  Through  the 
law  of  sex-heredity  life  is  one  unbroken  series  of  repro- 
duction from  below,  and  by  Virgin-birth  is  one  un- 
broken series  of  introduction  from  above.  The  Church 
denies  neither  but  shows  the  necessity  of  both.  Let 
me  show  you  how  as  briefly  as  I  can. 

(i)  Since  God  is  sexless,  and  He  uses  all  His  lower 
creation  as  the  womb  in  which  to  beget  His  spiritual 
offspring,  His  lower  creation  is  to  Him,  in  His  spirit- 
procreating  diction  J  sexless :  the  Virgin  mother  of  His 
embodied  life. 

(2)  The  doctrine  of  Virgin-birth  teaches  that,  in 
the  evolution  of  life  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  form, 
the  creature  is  used  in  a  sexless  way,  that  is,  as  a  Virgin, 
by  the  direct  action  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  so  that  the 
whole  life  series  from  the  star-strewn  dust  to  Jesus 
are  derived  from  above  by  Virgin-birth. 

(3)  The  doctrine  of  Virgin-birth,  stated  in  its  broad- 
est outline  and  deepest  sense,  is  that  God  does  not 
make  all  new  types  of  life  directly  out  of  the  dust, 
though  it  is  used  in  making  all  forms  of  life  as  is  stated 


I30  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

in  the  book  of  Genesis,  but,  by  the  direct  action  of  His 
Spirit  successively  upon  the  lower  forms  of  life,  evolves 
the  successive  higher  forms  of  life,  as  in  a  three-story 
house  the  second  story  is  built  upon  the  first  story, 
and  the  third  story  is  built  upon  the  second  story. 
The  carpenter  builds  his  house  as  directly  by  building 
one  story  upon  another  as  he  does  when  he  builds  a 
one-story  house  on  the  ground.  In  fact  how  can  a 
three-story  house  be  built  otherwise  than  by  building 
one  story  upon  another  ?  Life  is  an  organically  related 
three-story  structure,  built  both  from  above  and 
below,  one  story  built  upon  another  story. 

(4)  We  can  never  understand  the  meaning  and 
necessity  of  Virgin-birth  until  we  understand  the  trin- 
ity of  gender  —  male,  female,  and  neuter  —  taught 
in  every  grammar.  Neuter  gender  is  the  gender  of 
God,  and  expresses  His  relation  to  all  His  creation 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  in  all  His  spirit-beget- 
ting processes.  It  is  His  eternal  method  of  the  intro- 
duction of  all  life ;  furthermore,  it  is  the  only  conceiv- 
able process  of  divine  begetting,  since  God  is  sexless, 
and  He  in  His  spirit  activity  is  alone  the  creator  and 
begetter  of  the  first  forms  of  all  life. 

(5)  After  life  is  introduced  and  begotten  in  this 
sexless  way,  then  the  creature  cooperates  in  repro- 
ducing the  second  form  of  this  life  by  the  sex  law  of 
male  and  female,  separately  or  combined.  Here  we 
have  the  origin  and  the  necessity  of  the  three  genders. 
The  neuter  gender  is  the  gender  of  God,  and  of 
Virgin-birth,  through  which  all  life  is  introduced ;  male 
and  female  is  the  gender  through  which  all  psychic 
human  life  is  reproduced. 


BAPTISM   AND   SEXLESS  BIRTH  131 

(6)  God  never  ceases  to  beget  His  life,  for  there  is 
an  eternal  outgoing  of  life  from  Him ;  in  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Baptism  we  see  in  one  act  both  the  introduction 
and  reproduction  of  His  spiritual  sexless  begetting 
activities. 

This  doctrine  of  the  Virgin-birth,  which  I  have  stated 
for  you  in  these  six  propositions,  our  objector  knows 
nothing  about;  he  has  been  so  hypnotized  and  ob- 
sessed with  the  idea  that  it  is  a  myth,  and  so  contrary 
to  all  the  facts  which  he  imagines  he  knows,  that  he 
has  not  the  faintest  idea  of  what  it  means.  If  he  will 
do  some  genuine  original  thinking,  he  will  soon  find 
that  this  doctrine  alone  explains  a  whole  lot  of  facts 
which  he  knows,  but  does  not  know  how  to  use  in  his 
philosophy  of  life.  He  will  also  find,  upon  a  careful 
examination,  that  all  his  objections  to  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity,  as  taught  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  grow 
out  of  his  deistic  carpenter  conception  of  the  universe, 
while  the  Christian  Religion  grows  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  Universe  is  the  Living  Organism  of  God's 
eternal  life.  Therefore,  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to 
briefly  outline  and  contrast  for  you  these  two  concep- 
tions of  God,  the  infinite  Spirit,  to  His  embodied  life 
as  nature,  and  His  incarnate  life  as  man. 

Our  objector's  criticism  of  the  Christian  Religion 
falls  to  the  ground  as  soon  as  you  point  out  to  him 
that  his  deistic  conception  of  God,  which  is  not  the 
Christian  conception  of  God,  makes  God  a  celestial 
carpenter  mechanic,  far  away  and  above  us,  who  once 
and  for  all  created  the  world  and  us  as  a  carpenter  does 
his  wagon.  Out  of  this  conception  grows  the  Mo- 
hammedan and  Jewish  conception  of  God  which  has 


132  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

masqueraded  as  Christianity.  Jesus  in  giving  us  the 
Christian  Religion  has  transcended  all  such  concep- 
tions as  these  theologies  teach. 

We  ought,  however,  never  to  forget  that  ''the  car- 
penter conception  of  the  universe"  is  not  the  concep- 
tion of  the  prophets  of  God  who  wrote  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Their  conception  of  God  is  that  He  is  far 
more  intimately  connected  with  nature  and  with  man ; 
that  He  does  not  indwell  mechanically  in  nature  and 
in  man,  as  we  indwell  in  our  wooden  houses,  but  vitally 
as  we  indwell  in  our  flesh  and  blood  houses ;  that  He 
indwells  both  in  nature  and  in  man  in  so  vital  and 
living  a  way,  that,  if  He  were  to  have  the  relation  to 
the  world  that  a  carpenter  does  to  his  wagon,  the  world 
would  be  a  corpse.  But  God  so  vitally  lives  in  the 
world  that  in  the  deepest  of  senses  the  Hfe  of  the 
world  is  His  life,  and  the  life  of  man,  in  all  respects 
except  sin,  is  His  life. 

During  the  time,  however,  between  the  closing  of 
the  Old  Testament  Canon  and  the  birth  of  our  Saviour, 
this  truth  was  largely  lost  in  Israel ;  and  one  purpose 
of  our  Saviour  was  to  recall  the  people  of  His  day  to 
the  truth  which  the  prophets  had  taught  their  fathers. 
So  we  hear  Him  beginning  his  ministry  with  these 
words:  "I  am  not  come  to  destroy  the  law  and  the 
prophets,  but  to  fulfill  them." 

One  is  perfectly  safe  in  saying  that  this  truth  of  the 
vital  living  relation  of  God  to  man  and  to  nature  is 
one  of  the  oldest  known  truths  in  the  world.  All  the 
reformations  in  the  world  have  been  caused  by  re- 
gaining this  truth,  and  all  the  dark  ages  in  the  world 
have  been  caused  by  losing  this  truth.     It  is  certainly 


BAPTISM  AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  133 

the  ancient  account  of  things  as  recorded  in  the  book 
of  Genesis,  which  St.  Paul  reiterates  in  his  Epistles, 
and  all  our  modern  discoveries  about  prehistoric 
man  show  how  vividly  and  clearly  they  realized  that 
the  great  spirit  indwelt  in  nature,  and  was  in  com- 
munion with  their  spirits. 

Out  of  the  conception  that  the  world  is  the  living 
organized  life  of  God,  under  limitations  of  form,  space, 
and  time,  the  Christian  Religion  naturally  and  neces- 
sarily grows,  has  been  historically  developed  in  the 
world,  and  all  through  the  ages  has  inspired  the  proph- 
ets, nerved  the  patriot's  arm,  and  justified  the  martyr's 
death,  until  at  last,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  there  came 
that  far-off  day  which  Abraham  saw  and  was  glad; 
how  that  God  would  incarnate  Himself  in  His  Son  and 
David's  son,  and  in  Adam's  son,  and  in  Eve's  son. 

In  this  lecture,  as  I  am  minded  to  go  a  little  deeper 
into  these  things  than  I  have  ever  done  before,  I  am 
tempted  to  draw  back  for  fear  that  I  may  not  be  able 
to  carry  you  along  with  me.  I  am  almost  tempted  to 
quote  you  the  words  of  the  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews:  "for  when  by  this  time  ye  ought 
to  be  teachers,  ye  have  need  that  one  teach  you 
again  which  be  the  first  principles  of  the  oracles  of 
God ;  and  are  become  such  as  have  need  of  milk  and 
not  of  strong  meat."  Just  think  how  the  Christian 
world  has  degenerated  since  those  early  days,  when 
the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  were  as  easily  understood  by 
his  audiences  as  your  letters  are  by  your  friends  to- 
day. But  I  am  persuaded  that  the  time  has  come  to 
carry  on  an  aggressive  warfare  of  the  Christian  faith, 
and  that  we  must  begin  this  warfare  by  a  vigorous 


134  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

campaign  of  education  in  the  household  of  faith  itself, 
for  the  greatest  difficulty  confronting  us  is  the  indiffer- 
ence and  ignorance  of  our  own  Church  people  of  the 
great  fundamental  principles  of  the  Christian  religion. 
I  will  go  further  and  say  that  we  need  to  be  fed,  not 
only  upon  milk,  but  upon  the  strongest  meat  of  the 
Word  of  God,  if  we  wish  to  grow  in  our  own  personal 
Christian  life,  and  maintain  the  Christian  religion  in 
the  world.  I  say  all  this  because  it  grows  out  of  my 
own  personal  experience. 

Some  years  ago  I  read  a  book  by  James  Lane  Allen 
with  the  title,  ''Reign  of  Law,"  which  in  part  reads 
Uke  my  own  autobiography.  The  large  sale  of  the 
book  at  the  time  of  its  publication  had  its  significance 
in  the  fact  that  thousands  found  themselves  pictured 
in  it;  but  the  weakness  of  the  book  consists  in  that 
it  does  not  answer  the  problems  which  it  raises,  and 
by  not  doing  so  leaves  the  impression  that  they 
cannot  be  answered ;  at  least  does  not  give  the  answer 
the  best  men  in  the  Church  give,  and  therein  consists 
the  weakness  of  this  book  and  those  like  it,  and  their 
danger  to  the  half -educated  ignorant. 

I  said  a  few  moments  ago  that  out  of  God's  living 
vital  relations  to  the  world  and  to  man,  the  Christian 
religion  naturally  and  necessarily  grows,  the  essence 
of  which  is  summed  up  in  three  words,  —  Immanence, 
Virgin-birth,  and  Incarnation  of  God, —  and  I  must  now 
make  it  plain  what  these  words  mean  and  how  they 
are  necessarily  connected. 

The  immanence  of  God  means  indwelling  of  God 
in  both  a  hidden  and  a  revealed  manner,  as  my  spirit 
dwells  in  my  body  in  such  a  manner  as  both  to  conceal 


BAPTISM   AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  135 

and  to  reveal  me.  My  body  reveals  as  much  of  my 
spirit  to  you  as  can  be  touched,  seen,  and  handled,  and 
no  more;  it  conceals  the  balance  of  me,  which  I  will 
illustrate  in  the  following  manner.  The  most  ignorant 
clerk  that  ever  weighed  crackers  in  a  corner  grocery 
store  can  tell  you  how  much  Shakespeare  weighed, 
the  ignorant  tailor  can  tell  you  accurately  his  size, 
the  camera  portray  the  lineaments  of  his  face  —  all 
these  can  describe  Shakespeare  more  accurately,  as 
far  as  they  go,  than  the  profoundest  philosophic  and 
poetic  genius  that  ever  lived.  But  this  Shakespeare 
revealed  to  you  in  this  manner,  as  perfectly  as  a  mask, 
conceals  the  Shakespeare  who  walked  the  streets  of 
London,  and  tells  us  nothing  about  the  Shakespeare 
we  love  so  well  to-day.  These  masks  of  flesh-bodies, 
behind  which  we  hide  and  out  of  which  we  peep,  both 
conceal  and  reveal  us.  They  reveal  us,  because  with- 
out them  we  could  not  know  one  another  on  this  physi- 
cal plane;  they  also  conceal  us,  because  our  bodies 
reveal  so  little  of  us ;  because  we  are  so  much  more  and 
greater  than  these  masks  of  the  night,  these  flesh  and 
blood  bodies.  The  body  of  the  person  sitting  next 
to  you  conceals  you  from  him  and  him  from  you ;  but 
could  our  bodies  as  perfectly  reveal  us  now,  as  they 
will  when  our  incarnation  of  God  is  complete,  when 
instead  of  masks  of  our  spirits  our  bodies  become  the 
perfect  revelation  of  our  spirits,  answers  the  question, 
Will  there  be  recognition  in  heaven  ?  It  answers  the 
question  for  us  by  saying  that  we  will  have  then  for 
the  first  time  a  thorough  introduction  to  ourselves,  to 
one  another,  and  to  God. 
To  return  from  heaven  to  earth,  let  us  constantly 


136  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

remember  that,  while  God  is  immanent  in  nature  and 
in  man,  and  while  they  reveal  something  of  God, 
they  conceal  vastly  more  than  they  reveal,  for  it  is 
only  in  the  incarnation  of  God  that  we  have  the  perfect 
revelation  of  Him.  For  instance,  I  take  a  few  grains 
of  powder  in  my  hands,  and  look  at  them,  touch  them, 
taste  them  —  harmless  enough,  these  black  grains, 
thinks  the  untutored  savage.  But  confine  them  in  the 
rock-ribbed  mountains  and  touch  them  with  a  spark 
of  fire,  and  the  earth  trembles  as  in  the  earthquake 
shock.  Titanic  power  is  immanent,  that  is,  concealed 
and  potential,  in  those  innocent-looking  black  grains, 
which,  under  the  proper  conditions,  become  young 
volcanoes,  belching  forth  fire  and  hurling  tons  of  pon- 
derous matter  through  the  air  as  if  hurled  by  an  arch- 
angel's hand. 

But  there  is  nothing,  perhaps,  which  at  first  conceals 
and  afterward  reveals  more  than  an  egg,  and  noth- 
ing, save  the  commonness  of  the  occurrence,  blinds 
us  to  the  perpetual  marvel  wrought  out  before  our 
eyes.  There  it  is,  a  mass  of  protoplasm,  wrapped  only, 
as  the  divine  artist  can  wrap,  in  a  thin  tissue  sack, 
incased  in  a  shell  of  lime;  but,  under  the  proper 
conditions,  the  life  involved  in  that  shell  is  evolved 
into  the  living  chicken,  and  finally  resurrects  him  into 
the  crowing  cock,  when  the  immanent  type  of  life 
becomes  perfectly  revealed  by  becoming  incarnate. 

So  much  for  the  immanent  or  concealed  life  of  God 
in  the  world.  So  far  as  the  immanent  life  of  God  is 
concerned,  it  is  alike  in  the  sunlit  stars,  the  grain  of 
sand,  in  man,  and  in  the  highest  archangel.  It  is 
simply  the  world-old  teaching  of  the  real  omnipresence 


BAPTISM   AND    SEXLESS   BIRTH  137 

of  God,  which  teaches  that  God  is  as  truly  in  the  grain 
of  sand  as  in  Jesus,  as  the  chicken  is  as  truly  in  the 
egg  as  it  is  in  the  crowing  cock. 

But  we  see  in  the  world  all  kinds  and  degrees  of 
life  separated  from  one  another  by  impassable  gulfs, 
every  creature  having  life  in  itself  after  its  kind  and 
propagating  life  after  its  kind.  This  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  the  mystery  of  how  these  gulfs  between 
different  t3^es  of  life  are  crossed,  and  starts  us  search- 
ing for  the  bridge  that  connects  them.  The  Church 
answers  that  the  bridge  connecting  the  two  last  and 
highest  types  of  life  is  sexless  Virgin-birth ;  and,  if  so, 
then  to  be  consistent,  this  bridge  must  extend  back- 
wards imtil  it  connects  the  gulfs  of  all  the  other  types 
of  life.  The  problem  of  how  the  one  eternal  life  and 
Spirit  of  the  universe  becomes  incarnate  as  individuals 
can  be  explained  only  by  sexless  Virgin-birth. 

But  first  what  does  the  incarnation  of  God  mean? 
Since  God  indwells  in  a  stone,  a  tree,  an  ox,  in  Adam, 
and  in  the  perfect  man  Jesus,  wherein  do  they  differ 
and  wherein  is  one  higher  and  better  than  the  other  ? 
In  answer  I  ask  you  to  return  with  me  and  look  a  little 
deeper  than  we  are  accustomed  to  do  into  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis;  for,  as  a  wise  Rabbi  long  ago  has 
said,  he  who  understands  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis 
understands  the  mystery  of  the  universe.  In  that 
chapter  we  are  told  that  in  the  beginning  the  earth 
was  without  form  and  void  and  darkness  was  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  brooded  upon 
the  face  of  the  deep.  This  is  so  simple  that  any  child 
can  understand  what  it  means,  if  it  has  ever  watched 
a  hen  brood  her  eggs.     Why  does  a  hen  brood  her 


138  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

eggs  ?  To  evolve  the  life  out  of  the  egg  which  she  has 
first  involved  in  the  egg  when  she  made  the  egg.  The 
hen  completes  the  process  of  involution  when  she  lays 
the  egg  and  begins  the  process  of  evolution  when  she 
begins  to  hrood  the  egg.  Considerable  time  generally 
elapses  between  the  two  processes.  So  in  the  he- 
ginning,  when  God  made  the  world  —  whenever  that 
was  —  He  involved  His  life  in  the  world-egg,  and  then 
by  brooding  the  world-egg  with  His  Spirit  He  evolves 
out  of  the  world  his  immanent  life  which  He  involved 
in  it  in  the  beginning.  But  this  is  done  by  degrees  of 
an  ever  onward  and  higher  evolution  of  life,  beginning 
in  the  mineral  kingdom  and  continued  through  all 
forms  of  higher  life,  until  finally  all  of  His  involved 
immanent  life  becomes  openly  showed  and  fully 
revealed  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  This  is  the  incarna- 
tion of  God  and  is  what  the  incarnation  of  God  means. 
As  St.  John  says  :  ^'That  which  was  from  the  beginning 
which  we  have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with  our 
eyes,  which  we  have  looked  upon,  and  our  hands  have 
handled  of  the  Word  of  Life,  which  was  with  the 
Father,  and  was  manifest  unto  us,  declare  we  unto 
you."  So  that  while  it  is  true  that  the  underlying, 
hidden,  omniscient,  divine  life  in  the  world  is  the  same 
in  all  things,  that  which  makes  the  difference  in  living 
things  is  the  degrees  and  kinds  of  divine  life  not  im- 
manent in  all  but  embodied  as  each.  Through 
spiritual  sexless  Virgin-birth  the  one  life  and  Spirit  of 
God  becomes  differentiated  in  and  as  all. 

The  lowest  qualities  only  of  divine  life  are  embodied 
as  grass,  but  enough  to  teach  us  that  when  we  walk  the 
dewy  fields,  we  tread  the  jeweled  courts  of  heaven,  if 


BAPTISM   AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  139 

we  were  but  aware  of  it,  and  not  so  dulled  by  stale 
custom  as  to  call  what  God  hath  made,  common  and 
unclean. 

When  we  reach  the  animal  kingdom,  we  enter  upon 
another  higher  series  of  another  kind  of  life,  and  so  on 
through  all  forms,  until  in  the  higher  animals  coming 
events  cast  their  shadows  before,  and  we  see  in  them 
the  prophecy  of  the  incarnation  of  mind  as  man.  In 
man  we  find  the  beginnings  of  the  incarnation  of  the 
mind  and  moral  nature  of  God,  self-conscious  and  free 
activity,  which  begins  in  Adam,  and  rises  higher  and 
higher  through  all  the  centuries  as  it  is  outlined  for  us 
in  the  genealogy  of  St.  Luke,  until  in  the  Virgin's  Son 
we  have  the  express  image  and  revelation  of  the  Father 
in  whom  is  summed  up  all  things  in  heaven  and  on 
earth. 

I  wish  you  now  to  notice  that  the  incarnation  of  God 
is  not  something  which  begins  and  ends  in  Jesus.  The 
beginning  of  the  embodiment  of  the  eternal  and  only 
Son  of  God  began  in  the  first  forms  of  life  on  this  planet, 
and,  as  St.  Paul  says,  throughout  all  the  blood-stained 
history  of  the  ages,  He  struggled  with  groanings  which 
cannot  be  uttered,  until  the  sin-stained  nature  of  man 
was  bleached  in  Jesus,  through  whom  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  incarnation  was  wrought  out. 

I  would  also  ask  you  to  note  that  the  incarnation  is 
not  an  afterthought  with  God,  but  His  first  thought, 
His  eternal  purpose  which  the  sin  of  man  did  not 
thwart  but  delayed;  furthermore,  that  Virgin  (sex- 
less) birth  is  the  age-long  historical  life  process  on  the 
planet,  not  an  isolated  and  lonely  episode  by  itself 
when  God  suddenly  breaks  with  all  past  life  processes 


I40  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

on  the  planet,  but  the  only  method  through  which  any 
new  quality  of  life  ever  has  come  to  birth  on  this 
planet.  A  very  little  reflection  will  show  us  that  sex- 
less birth  is  a  very  old  process  known  to  Scripture, 
and  will  become  an  integral  part  of  evolution  when 
the  doctrine  is  fully  stated. 

The  law  as  I  discovered  it  and  stated  it  twenty  years 
ago,  while  I  was  a  student  at  Berkely  Divinity  School, 
is  this:  The  first  and  the  second  of  its  kind  are  not 
embodied  in  the  world  in  the  same  way.  Sexless 
birth  is  the  law  of  the  introduction  of  life,  and  sex 
birth  is  the  law  of  the  reproduction  of  embodied  life. 

Listen  to  these  words  which  are  repeated  in  the  first 
chapters  of  Genesis  every  time  that  new  and  higher 
t3^es  of  life  are  embodied.  "And  God  said.  Let  the 
earth  bring  forth  grass  (literally,  the  young  tender 
thing)  the  herb  yielding  seed  after  His  kind,  whose 
seed  is  in  itself  upon  the  earth ;  and  it  was  so."  Let 
us  analyze  what  this  means :  The  first  form  of  vegetable 
life  came  into  the  world  without  springing  up  from  a 
seed,  the  second  came  from  the  seed  which  was  pro- 
duced by  the  first  form.  In  other  words,  the  first 
form  of  life  came  into  the  world  by  a  divine  sexless 
Virgin-birth  as  follows :  The  earth,  which  is  sexless,  is 
the  mother ;  God  by  His  spirit-procreating  act  caused 
sexless  mother  earth  to  bring  forth  the  first  form  of 
life  higher  than  the  mineral  kingdom.  And  we  find 
this  formula  repeated  all  through  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis  as  God  embodied  more  and  more  of  His  life 
in  this  world. 

All  kingdoms  of  life  enter  this  world  by  a  super- 
natural, sexless  Virgin-birth  of  the  first  individual  of 


BAPTISM  AND   SEXLESS   BIRTH  141 

that  kingdom,  its  head  and  king.  It  is  unlike  any 
other  existing  type  of  life,  as  it  partakes  of  qualities 
of  life  possessed  by  no  other  type,  imparted  directly 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  eternal  Life-Giver.  Unless 
this  is  so  it  is  not  a  new  kingdom  of  life,  it  is  the  per- 
petuation of  an  old  t)^e  of  Hfe,  and  not  an  inflow  of 
new  and  higher  qualities  of  the  life  of  God  never 
hitherto  incarnate. 

At  Bethlehem,  now  some  two  thousand  years  ago, 
the  Word  was  made  flesh  as  Jesus.  Some  thirty  years 
later  He  was  crucified,  and  on  the  third  day  He  arose, 
and  afterwards  He  ascended  into  Heaven. 

What  relation  do  that  birth  and  that  resurrection 
have  to  all  other  human  beings?  Is  it  to  be  limited 
to  Jesus  or  does  He,  as  head  of  the  spiritually  begotten 
life  of  God,  reproduce  His  spiritual  type  of  life,  as 
Adam  reproduces  his  psychic  type  of  life?  And  if 
Jesus  reproduces  His  type  of  life,  how  is  this  done  ? 

It  is  the  teaching  of  Christianity  that  the  birth  and 
resurrection  of  Jesus  are  to  be  reproduced  in  all  men, 
and  the  sum  total  of  the  process  by  which  His  birth  is 
reproduced  in  us  is  what  the  Church  means  by  the 
Sacrament  of  Baptism;  and  the  sum  total  of  the 
process  by  which  the  resurrection  of  Christ  is  wrought 
out  in  us  is  what  the  Church  means  by  the  Sacrament 
of  Holy  Communion.  By  Baptism  and  Holy  Com- 
munion the  incarnation  and  its  benefits  are  extended 
to  all  who  will  receive  it.  That  birth  which  came  to 
completion  in  Bethlehem  and  to  its  consummation  on 
Calvary  is  in  process  of  reproduction  here  and  now 
in  the  Church  of  God.  This  is  the  Holy  of  Holies 
of  the  Sacramental  System  of  the  Christian  Church. 


142  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

Summary :  If  that  kingdom  of  life  born  with  Jesus 
is  not  to  die  with  Him,  He,  like  Adam,  must  have  the 
power  to  reproduce  His  type  of  life  in  the  world. 
This  is  true  of  all  kingdoms  of  life  that  live.  So  if 
Christ  has  not  the  power  of  reproducing  Himself, 
there  will  be  Christ  but  never  a  Christian.  But  He 
who  was  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost  has  the  power 
to  impart  to  others  the  same  spirit  of  which  He  is  the 
incarnation.  This  is  true  of  all  kingdoms  of  life. 
Here  is  the  reason  why  the  Western  Church  has  held 
so  tenaciously  to  the  doctrine  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
proceeds  from  the  Son  as  well  as  the  Father.  As 
Adam's  kingdom  of  life  depends  upon  his  power  to 
beget  and  send  forth  that  spirit  of  which  he  is  the 
incarnation,  so  Christ's  kingdom  depends  upon  His 
power  to  beget  and  send  forth  that  Holy  Spirit  of  which 
He  is  the  Incarnation. 

So  He  said  to  His  Apostles :  Wait  for  the  coming  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  with  which  ye  shall  be  baptized  not 
many  days  hence.  Ten  days  later  Christ  did  send 
the  Holy  Spirit  into  the  inmost  lives  of  those  await- 
ing disciples  in  so  vital  a  manner,  that  His  spirit 
became  their  spirit,  His  life  their  life.  His  body  their 
body,  the  Church  of  the  living  God.  Christ  begat 
Himself  in  them  so  that  the  new  kingdom  of  life  let 
down  from  heaven  as  Him  would  be  reproduced  and 
perpetuated  as  His  Church  on  earth  by  the  baptism 
of  every  creature  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and 
of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


PART   III 
LECTURES   ON   THE   CATECHISM 


XI 

THE   SACRAMENT  OF  CONFIRMATION 

At  the  close  of  the  Baptismal  Service  the  Sponsors 
are  reminded  of  the  duties  which  they  have  assumed 
in  these  words:  ''Ye  are  to  take  care  that  this  child 
be  brought  to  the  Bishop  to  be  confirmed  by  him,  so 
soon  as  he  can  say  the  Creed,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
the  Ten  Commandments,  and  is  sufiiciently  instructed 
in  other  parts  of  the  Church  Catechism  set  forth  for 
that  purpose." 

When  the  child  has  been  so  instructed,  and  is  pre- 
sented for  confirmation,  he  is  asked:  ''Do  you  here, 
in  the  presence  of  God,  and  of  this  congregation, 
renew  the  solemn  promise  and  vow  that  was  made  at 
your  baptism;  ratifying  and  confirming  the  same; 
acknowledging  yourself  bound  to  believe  and  to  do 
all  those  things  which  your  sponsors  then  undertook 
for  you?"    The  person  confirmed  answers,  "I  do." 

Numerous  objections  have  been  made  to  this  method 
of  teaching  and  training  the  young  child,  the  most 
serious  being  that,  as  religion  is  entirely  a  matter 
between  the  individual  and  God,  no  one  has  any 
right  to  promise  to  bind  the  child  to  any  religious 
belief,  but  wait  till  the  child  grows  up  and  let  him 
choose  for  himself.  We  reply  that,  if  we  understand 
the  Christian  religion,  we  have  an  entirely  different 
conception  of  it.     We  reply  that  thou  shalt  not  lie, 

L  145 


146  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

cheat,  steal,  covet,  and  murder  —  in  other  words, 
thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  —  is  as  much 
a  part  of  the  Christian  religion  as  thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God.  We  reply  that  Christianity  is  essen- 
tially social  as  well  as  the  private  relations  of  the 
individual  to  God. 

Of  course  there  are  a  great  many  things  which  we 
have  no  right  to  promise  for  the  child,  and  bind  him 
to  do  on  coming  to  the  years  of  discretion,  or  to  bind 
ourselves  to  do  for  him.  For  instance,  we  have  no 
right  to  promise  that  he  shall  be  a  lawyer,  live  in 
America,  marry  this  or  that  person,  or  do  a  hundred 
other  things  which  I  could  mention.  But  God  and 
humanity  do  hold  us  responsible  for  the  actions  of 
the  child  until  he  can  act  for  himself,  and  we  are 
bound  to  so  train  him  that  he  will  grow  up  to  be  a 
good  man,  which  we  cannot  do  without  teaching  him 
the  ten  commandments ;  to  teach  him  his  kinship  to 
God,  which  we  cannot  do  without  teaching  him  the 
Apostles'  Creed;  to  teach  him  that  he  cannot  live 
apart  from  communion  with  God  and  man,  and,  there- 
fore, we  must  teach  him  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

It  is  not  binding  upon  us  that  we  shall  teach  our 
child  any  of  the  hundreds  of  peculiar  non-essentials 
of  religion  which  have  rent  the  Christian  Church  into 
as  many  sects,  but  it  is  binding  upon  us,  who  are 
Christians,  to  do  all  that  we  possibly  can  to  make 
our  child  grow  up  into  a  Christian.  Therefore,  all 
any  Sponsor  promises  in  the  vows  which  he  assumes 
for  the  child  is  that  he  will  teach  the  child  only  those 
things  which  he  must  absolutely  do  and  believe  in 
order  to  be  a  Christian  of  any  kind.     It  is  binding 


THE   SACRAMENT  OF   CONFIRMATION     147 

upon  us  to  make  our  children  catholic,  not  sectarian, 
Christians,  which  you  will  see  as  soon  as  we  know 
what  Catholic  Christian  means.  This  we  cannot 
know  until  we  understand  what  the  Catholic  Church 
means,  and  the  Essentials  of  its  Membership,  which  I 
shall  briefly  state  in  the  two  succeeding  chapters.  But 
before  I  do  so,  let  me  state  the  fundamentals  out  of 
which  they  both  grow,  which  fundamentals  the  person 
ratifies  in  the  Sacrament  of  Confirmation. 

FUNDAMENTALS 

/.  Religion.  —  ''Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all 
thy  mind.  This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment. 
And  the  second  is  like  unto  it ;  thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments 
hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets.''  This  is  absolutely 
all  of  religion,  which  came  to  perfection  in  Christ- 
Jesus  our  Lord. 

//.  The  Facts  of  Religion.  —  Religion  is  based  upon 
the  unchangeable  facts  of  life,  the  substance  of  which 
is  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Sonship  of  Man  — 
the  Kinship  of  God  and  Man.  Around  this  central 
fact,  and  necessarily  growing  out  of  this  vital  and 
personal  relation  of  God  and  man,  human  history 
became  what  it  is,  the  essence  of  which  is  summed 
up  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  —  the  facts  upon  which 
religion  is  based. 

Apostles'  Creed 

I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  maker  of  heaven  and  earth ; 
and  in  Jesus  Christ  His  only  Son  our  Lord ;  who  was  conceived  by  the 


148  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary :  Suflfered  under  Pontius  Pilate, 
was  crucified,  dead  and  buried :  He  descended  into  Hell :  the  third 
day  He  rose  again  from  the  dead :  He  ascended  into  heaven,  and 
sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God  the  Father  Almighty :  from  thence 
He  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead :  I  beUeve  in  the 
Holy  Ghost :  the  holy  Catholic  Church :  the  Communion  of  Saints : 
the  forgiveness  of  Sins :  the  resurrection  of  the  body :  and  the  life 
everlasting.    Amen. 

///.  Theology.  —  Theology  is  the  explanation  of 
the  facts  of  life.  Great  Christian  thinkers  have 
thought  out  systems  of  theology,  which,  in  the  place 
of  religion  and  the  facts  of  religion,  have  become  the  I 

artificial  bond  of  union  and  also  of  disunion  among 
Christians,  breaking  the  unity  of  the  Church  into 
warring  sects.  The  cause  of  the  disunion  of  Christen- 
dom has  not  been  religion,  but  a  narrow  and  intolerant 
spirit  creating  mutually  exclusive  and  antagonistic 
systems  of  theology,  upon  which  Christian  societies 
have  been  erected.  To  this  add  despotism  in  church 
government,  and  the  attempt  to  enforce  uniformity 
in  the  ritual  of  worship,  and  I  believe  that  we  shall 
have  the  most  potent  causes  of  Christian  sectism. 

IV.  Catholic  Theology.  —  The  nearest  approxima- 
tion the  Catholic  Church  has  to  what  may  be  called 
a  system  of  theology  is  the  Nicene  Creed.  Any 
profounder  interpretation  or  greater  expansion  of  the 
facts  of  the  universe  than  is  contained  in  the  Nicene 
Creed  mankind  eagerly  awaits. 

Nicene  Creed 

I  believe  in  one  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  heaven  and 
earth.     And  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible  : 

And  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God,  Be- 
gotten of  His  Father  before  all  worlds,  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light, 
very  God  of  very  God,  Begotten,  not  made,  Being  of  one  substance 


THE   SACRAMENT  OF   CONFIRMATION     149 

with  the  Father,  By  whom  all  things  were  made :  Who  for  us  men, 
and  our  salvation  came  down  from  heaven,  And  was  incarnate  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  was  made  man.  And  was  crucified 
also  for  us  under  Pontius  Pilate.  He  suffered  and  was  buried.  And 
the  third  day  He  rose  again  according  to  the  Scriptures,  And  ascended 
into  heaven,  And  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father :  And  He  shall 
come  again  with  glory  to  judge  both  the  quick  and  the  dead :  Whose 
kingdom  shall  have  no  end. 

And  I  beheve  in  the  Holy  Ghost  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  Life,  who 
proceedeth  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  Who  with  the  Father  and 
the  Son  together  is  worshipped  and  glorified,  Who  spake  by  the  Proph- 
ets. And  I  believe  one  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church.  I  acknowl- 
edge one  Baptism  for  the  remission  of  sins.  And  I  look  for  the  resur- 
rection of  the  dead,  And  the  life  of  the  world  to  come.     Amen. 

V.  Catholic  Church.  —  The  Catholic  Church,  by 
which  is  meant  the  Universal  Church  of  Christ,  while 
tolerant  of  all  systems  of  theology  not  destructive  of 
the  revelation  of  God  given  in  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord, 
is  not  founded  upon,  nor  committed  to,  any  sectarian 
system  of  theology ;  but  is  founded  upon  the  facts  of 
religion,  its  bond  of  unity  being  love  of  God  and  man, 
the  breaking  of  which  is  schism. 

VI.  The  Catholic  Christian.  —  There  are  Christians 
in  all  the  societies  in  the  Church  of  God;  for  that 
which  makes  one  a  Christian  in  one  society  in  the 
Church,  makes  him  a  Christian  in  all.  There  is  only 
one  way  in  which  a  man  is  made  a  Christian,  which 
is  by  **  a  death  unto  sin  and  a  new  birth  unto  righteous- 
ness," which  spiritually  unites  us  all  in  God.  One 
can  be  a  Christian  without  being  a  sectarian,  and  the 
less  of  a  sectarian  there  is  about  him,  the  more  of  a 
Christian  he  is  likely  to  be.  Such  a  man  is  a  Catholic 
Christian,  and  wants  his  society  in  the  One  Church 
of  God  to  be  as  big  as  Christ,  so  that  it  can  take  in 
all  humanity  created  in  the  image  of  God. 


I50  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

This  is  what  the  child  ratifies  in  his  confirmation 
in  the  Christian  Church  — nothing  more  nor  less  than 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  Christian  life,  which  was 
promised  for  him,  and  began  to  be  imparted  to  him, 
in  baptism.  This  he  must  now  make  his  own  by  an 
act  of  his  own  free  will  and  choice.  The  part  the  per- 
son must  do  for  himself,  and  cannot  be  done  for  him 
by  any  one  else  whomsoever,  is  gathered  up  in  the 
sacrament  of  confirmation;  the  part  the  person 
cannot  by  any  possible  means  do  for  himself,  but 
must  be  done  for  him  by  persons  outside  himself,  is 
gathered  up  in  the  sacrament  of  baptism.  What  one 
cannot  do  for  himself  is  to  horn  himself.  We  all  clearly 
see  that  psychical  life  is  imparted  to  us  in  a  threefold 
way :  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  humanity,  and  the  world 
of  nature.  The  same  law  holds  good  in  our  spiritual 
birth,  which  is  also  imparted  to  us  in  a  threefold  way : 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  Church,  and  the  world  of 
nature.  We  cannot  do  anything  to  born  ourselves 
psychically  or  spiritually,  but  if,  after  we  receive  psy- 
chical or  spiritual  birth,  we  continue  to  live  either 
life,  then  7,  and  no  one  but  I  myself,  must  conform  to 
the  laws  of  life;  that  is,  ratify  and  confirm  them,  if  I 
continue  to  live.  How  I  am  to  make  the  spiritual 
life,  which  the  Church  gives  me  in  baptism,  my  own 
personal  life,  is  gathered  up  by  the  Church  in  the 
sacrament  of  confirmation,  in  which  Sacrament  I 
make  this  spiritual  life  my  very  own  by  conforming 
to  the  laws  of  this  kingdom  of  spiritual  life. 

What  are  the  laws  by  which  I  make  the  life  of 
Christ  my  life?  It  is  that  I  must  continue  to  co- 
operate with,  and  continue  to  receive  help  from,  those 


THE   SACRAMENT  OF   CONFIRMATION     151 

who  give  me  this  life.  This  is  the  law  of  every  kind 
and  form  of  life  without  any  exceptions  whatsoever. 
If  the  child  continues  to  Kve  after  it  is  born  in  the 
family,  it  must  conform  to  those  laws  which  create 
the  family,  otherwise  it  will  destroy  that  family  and 
itself.  For  instance,  no  human  family  can  continue 
to  exist  otherwise  than  upon  the  basis  of  the  ten 
commandments,  which,  together  with  the  Creed  and 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  are  what  the  person  ratifies  and  con- 
firms in  his  confirmation.  I  shall  explain  these  more 
in  detail  in  the  next  chapter. 

I  said  just  a  moment  ago  that  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  live  the  Christian  Hfe,  and  make  it  our 
personal  life,  is  by  remaining  in  communion  with  the 
source  whence  we  receive  this  life,  which  is  God,  His 
Church,  and  His  world  of  nature.  We  cannot  live 
the  Christian  life  in  isolation,  but  only  in  fellowship 
with  others,  as  we  are  social  beings.  That  assistance, 
without  which  we  are  not  made  strong  enough  to 
ratify  our  baptismal  vows,  must  come  from  the  Holy 
Spirit  God  and  His  Church,  which  is  gathered  up  and 
taught  in  the  sacrament  of  confirmation. 

What  is  the  outward  and  visible  part  in  the  sacra- 
ment of  confirmation  ?     The  Minister  and  the  Bishop. 

Whom  do  the  Minister  and  the  Bishop  represent? 
The  whole  Church  which  confirms  us. 

What  is  the  invisible  part  in  the  Sacrament  of 
Confirmation  ?     The  Spirit  of  God  and  His  Church. 

Where  do  we  see  the  outward  and  visible  and  in- 
ward and  spiritual  parts  of  the  Sacrament  of  Confir- 
mation united?  When  the  person  to  be  confirmed 
kneels,  and  the  Bishop  places  his  hands  upon  his 


152  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

head,  and  prays:  "Defend,  O  Lord,  this  thy  child 
with  heavenly  grace :  that  he  may  continue  thine 
forever;  and  daily  increase  in  thy  Holy  Spirit  more 
and  more  until  he  come  to  thine  everlasting  kingdom.'' 

This  is  how  the  person  in  the  sacrament  of  con- 
firmation ratifies  his  baptismal  vows,  and  how  the 
Church  sacramentally  helps  him  to  live  his  Christian 
life.  Let  us  now  see  how  these  fundamentals  grow 
out  of  a  true  conception  of  the  Christian  Church. 

I  have  not  stressed  in  this  chapter  the  part  the 
Holy  Spirit  takes  in  confirmation  as  much  as  many 
would  wish  to  see  perhaps.  Why  I  have  not  done  so 
is  because  everybody  takes  it  for  granted.  You  will 
find  the  divine  side  in  confirmation  more  fully  de- 
veloped in  the  chapter,  "Come  to  Years  of  Discre- 
tion." 

Note.  —  All  Churches  have  some  kind  of  Confirmation.  It  is  a 
pity  that  they  have  not  set  some  of  their  theologians  to  thoroughly 
work  out  its  logical  completion  of  Baptism  as  taught  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. I  have  been  confirmed  according  to  the  two  rites  of  the  Baptist 
and  Episcopal  Churches.  In  this  chapter  I  have  described  that  of 
the  Episcopal  Church.  In  the  Baptist  Church  this  is  the  way  I  was 
confirmed :  After  the  candidates  were  baptized  in  a  mill-pond  two 
miles  from  the  Church,  we  returned  to  the  Church  and  were  received 
into  it  by  the  minister  praying  that  God  would  give  us  the  aid  and 
assistance  of  His  Holy  Spirit  so  that  we  would  live  a  consistent  and 
useful  Christian  life.  Then  he  and  every  member  of  the  congregation 
gave  us  the  right  hand  of  fellowship,  in  token  that  we  had  the  assist- 
ance of  the  brethren  in  keeping  us  steadfast  and  firm  in  living  the 
Christian  hfe.  After  this  ceremony  was  finished,  the  Clerk  was  in- 
structed to  enroll  our  names  on  the  books  of  the  Church.  I  do  not 
know  whether  this  individual  Church  still  adheres  to  this  custom,  nor 
how  far  the  custom  is  used  by  the  Baptist  Church  as  a  whole. 


XII 

THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

In  this  year  of  grace  it  ought  to  be  impossible  for 
us  to  believe  that  any  man,  or  set  of  men,  ever  did  or 
can  organize  the  Church  of  God,  or  make  any  of  its 
rules  and  obligations  binding  upon  the  conduct  and 
consciences  of  men.  What  man  has  made,  man  can 
unmake  and  better  in  the  remaking;  but  the  things 
which  constitute  the  Church  of  God,  and  are  binding 
upon  the  conduct  and  consciences  of  men,  are  the 
eternal  laws  of  life,  revealed  by  God,  and  discovered, 
loved,  and  obeyed  by  man.  Who  ordained  that  we 
should  not  lie,  cheat,  steal,  and  murder?  Here  we 
are  plunged  at  once  into  the  midst  of  the  verities  of 
the  Church  of  God,  for  these  things  become  of  obliga- 
tion as  soon  as  they  awaken  a  responsive  echo  in  our 
consciences. 

If  then  the  Church  of  God  is  not  a  voluntary  organi- 
zation arising  among  men,  who  organized  it  and  when 
did  it  begin  ?  The  Church  of  God  began  the  moment 
He  created  man,  it  being  impossible  for  God  to  create 
man  without  at  the  same  time  creating  His  Church ; 
for  St.  Paul  says  that  the  Church  is  the  family  of 
God,  and  Jesus  founded  his  teaching  and  ventured 
His  fortunes  upon  this  statement,  which  contains  the 
essence  of  His  gospel,  ''call  no  man  your  father  upon 
the  earth,  for  one  is  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven.'' 

153 


154  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Sonship  is  as  old  as  the  family.  The  family  begins 
as  soon  as  there  is  father  —  mother  —  child.  The 
one  cannot  exist  without  the  other.  Since  the  Church 
is  the  family  of  God,  it  has  been  in  existence  as  long 
as  God  has  had  a  child  created  in  his  image.  As  God 
is  an  eternal  God  —  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  — 
His  family  is  an  eternal  family,  which  began  on  earth 
when  He  made  our  bodies  out  of  blessed  mother  earth 
and  breathed  His  Spirit  into  us,  and  has  been  going 
on  ever  since,  becoming  more  and  more  perfect  as  the 
race  grew  in  wisdom  and  in  stature  and  in  favor  with 
God,  until  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  earthly  family 
of  God  was  perfected  in  Christ- Jesus,  through  whom 
mankind  received  its  spiritual  birth. 


BOND  UNITING   GOD  AND  MAN 

What  is  the  essence  of  the  family  ?  Is  it  not  that 
which  binds  the  family  together  ?  In  a  word,  is  not 
the  essence  of  the  family  kinship?  Do  not  all  the 
obligations,  duties,  and  responsibilities  of  the  family 
grow  out  of  kinship?  Do  not  these  begin  with  the 
creation  of  the  family  ?  This  spiritual  kinship,  deeper 
than  blood  kinship,  is  the  bond  uniting  God  and  man, 
creating  those  everlasting  relations  between  God  and 
man  which  make  the  Church  the  family  of  God. 

It  is  true  that  the  world  is  continually  forgetting 
this,  the  central  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  to 
which  our  Saviour  sharply  recalled  the  world  when  he 
said,  "one  is  our  Father,  God  in  heaven."  If  we 
would  understand  the  reHgion  our  Saviour  taught  the 
world,  we  must  ever  keep  clearly  in  mind  that  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH  155 

essence  of  His  "glad  tidings"  is  that  the  kinship  of 
God  and  man  is  of  so  real,  deep,  and  divine  a  nature, 
that  our  earthly  nature  is  but  a  shadow  of  this ;  that 
out  of  this  kinship  of  God  and  man  grow  mutual 
responsibilities  and  obligations,  beginning  on  God's 
part  the  moment  He  creates  us,  and  on  our  part  at 
the  dawn  of  reason  and  conscience. 

Very  briefly  but  as  clearly  as  I  can,  let  me  explain 
these  four  things:  (i)  when  we  become  children  of 
God ;  (2)  God's  responsibility  to  us ;  (3)  our  respon- 
sibility to  God ;  (4)  the  three  things  which  make  the 
Church  of  God. 


WHEN  WE   BECOME   CHILDREN  OF  GOD 

I  do  not  see  how  we  can  give  any  other  answer 
than  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  gives  to  this 
question,  which  is  that  we  are  children  of  God,  though 
not  spiritual  children  of  God,  the  moment  we  are  born, 
for  His  Spirit  imparts  our  psychical  as  well  as  our 
spiritual  birth.  We  have  human  and  divine  parent- 
hood both  in  our  psychic  and  spiritual  births;  the 
first  through  God  and  our  natural  parents,  the  second 
through  God  and  His  Church. 

As  the  little  baby  lies  in  its  mother's  arms,  it  is  as 
truly  her  child  as  it  ever  can  be  and  she  as  truly  its 
mother  as  she  ever  can  be;  and  also  God  is  as  truly 
its  Father  as  He  ever  can  be,  for  God  never  puts  in  us 
anything  more  than  He  puts  in  us  in  birth;  for  in 
birth  all  heaven  and  earth  are  potentially  wrapped  up 
in  the  child.  From  this  time  on  and  forever  it  will 
be  development  and  education  of  the  child  imtil  the 


156  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

spiritual  man  rises  up  in  him  in  all  the  glory  of  his 
resurrection  into  the  express  image  of  his  heavenly 
Father. 

In  the  Bible  we  are  called  Children  of  God  in  three 
senses,  corresponding  to  our  material,  psychic,  and 
spiritual  births:  (i)  we  are  children  of  God  by 
creation;  (2)  we  are  children  of  God  by  regeneration; 
(3)  we  are  children  of  God  by  the  resurrection,  which 
threefold  birth  is  completed  in  us  when  our  regenera- 
tion, repentance,  and  conversion  have  wrought  out 
unto  perfect  fruition  the  fulness  of  the  stature  of 
Christ- Jesus  in  us. 

HOW  WE   ARE   MADE   CHILDREN  OF   GOD 

The  Christian  religion  teaches  that  we  cannot 
make  ourselves  children  of  God,  for  the  child  never 
creates  itself,  but  is  always  begotten  of  human  and 
divine  parentage,  receiving  sonship  as  a  free  gift.  We 
can  no  more  make  ourselves  spiritual  children  of  God 
than  we  can  make  ourselves  psychical  children  of  God. 

Let  us  here  guard  against  an  error,  —  without  in  any 
way  denying  or  obscuring  the  truth  contained  in  this 
error,  —  that  the  emotional  experience  of  what  is 
called  conversion  makes  us  children  of  God.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  no  kind  of  an  emotional 
experience  makes  me  a  child  of  my  earthly  father  un- 
less he  is  my  father  already.  The  same  is  true  of  God. 
Sonship  and  the  consciousness  of  sonship  are  two  dis- 
tinct things  which  must  never  be  confused.  Conscious- 
ness of  all  kinds  comes  after  and  as  the  result  of  hirth, 
not  during  birth,  nor  before  it.    Know  once  and  for 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH  157 

all  that  no  kind  of  birth  is  an  instantaneous  process, 
though  the  act  of  conceiving  is ;  and  that  an  interval 
of  time,  more  or  less  extended,  intervenes  between 
conception  and  hirth,  and  the  consciousness  of  birth  — 
material,  psychical,  and  spiritual.  The  act  of  con- 
ceiving all  three  is  one  instantaneous  act ;  the  process 
of  material  birth  extends  over  a  period  of  nine  months, 
the  process  of  psychical  birth  over  several  years,  and 
the  process  of  spiritual  birth  over  a  still  longer  period 
of  time ;  only  when  the  birth  is  complete,  does  the 
consciousness  of  it  dawn  in  us.  Nine-tenths  of  the 
trouble  in  theology  is  caused  by  confusing,  and  then 
identifying,  spiritual  birth,  or  baptism,  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  spiritual  birth,  or  confirmation,  in  which 
we  begin  self-consciously  to  exercise  those  spiritual 
powers  which  spiritual  birth  gives  us. 

The  trouble  is  that  baptism  and  confirmation  are 
confused  by  the  inexact  thinking  of  the  popular  theo- 
logical mind,  which  does  not  correctly  analyze  the 
distinction  between  conception,  birth,  and  self-con- 
sciousness. Baptism  is  spiritual  birth,  in  which  the 
person  spiritually  born  can  by  no  possible  means  take 
any  part ;  in  confirmation  the  person  begins  to  self- 
consciously use  his  spiritual  life  which  his  spiritual 
birth  gives  him. 

Births  of  all  kinds  are  necessarily  unconscious  pro- 
cesses to  the  person  born.  So  our  spiritual  birth  in 
baptism  is  as  necessarily  as  unconscious  a  process  as 
our  material  and  psychic  births.  As  soon  as  the  con- 
sciousness of  our  spiritual  sonship  arises  in  our  souls, 
which  spiritual  sonship  God  creates  in  us  through  His 
Church,  then  it  becomes  binding  upon  us  to  turn  away 


158  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

from  our  lower  nature,  which  we  inherit  through  our 
natural  birth,  and  conform  to  the  laws  of  our  spiritual 
nature  which  our  spiritual  birth  gives  us. 

Greater  confusion  cannot  possibly  arise  in  the  Chris- 
tian religion  than  by  tearing  baptism  out  of  its  neces- 
sary position  as  spiritual  birth,  in  which  the  person 
born  can  take  no  active  part,  and  confusing  it  with 
confirmation,  in  which  the  person  must  take  an  active 
part.  Evangelical  theology  means  by  baptism  what 
Catholic  theology  means  by  confirmation.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  this  confusion  has  arisen,  as  it  causes 
alienation  between  those  who  in  reahty  mean  the 
same  thing. 

In  hirth  the  emotional  experience  is  confined  to  the 
parent  and  unconsciousness  to  the  person  born ;  while 
in  confirmation  the  emotional  experience  of  those 
spiritually  begetting  the  child  becomes  the  self-con- 
scious experience  of  the  child  spiritually  come  to  self- 
consciousness,  as  he  realizes  that  the  infinite  and 
eternal  God  of  the  universe  is  His  Father,  and  as  he 
begins  to  make  this  eternal  spiritual  life  of  his  heavenly 
Father  his  own  life,  which  God  has  begotten  in  him 
through  His  Church.  This  emotional  experience 
comes  as  the  person  transcends  the  laws  of  his  psychic 
life,  and  makes  up  his  mind  to  obey  the  laws  of  the 
spiritual  life  of  his  heavenly  Father,  and  by  His 
gracious  help  try  to  live  worthily  of  His  infinite  love. 

HOW  THE   CHURCH  MAKES   OUR   SONSHIP 

Suppose  a  mother  has  twins,  and  keeps  one  with 
her  and  rears  it  at  home,  and  sends  the  other  to  be 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  159 

reared  among  the  Zulus  of  South  Africa.  The  one 
she  sends  among  the  Zulus  she  will  make  a  savage, 
while  the  one  she  keeps  at  home  will  grow  up  in  her 
image  and  likeness.  She  will  make  it  an  American 
child,  and  if  she  is  a  Christian  woman,  she  will  make 
it  grow  into  Christian  consciousness. 

In  the  place  of  the  mother  substitute  the  Church 
and  you  will  have  the  parallel  complete.  Because  the 
child  is  the  mother's  own  child,  blood  of  her  blood 
and  flesh  of  her  flesh,  she  makes  and  keeps  it  a  mem- 
ber of  her  household  in  order  that  it  may  be  baptized 
into  her  spirit  and  grow  in  her  likeness.  Because  we 
are  psychical  children  of  God,  and  not  spiritual  chil- 
dren of  God,  in  our  natural  birth,  we  are  made  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  as  soon  as  we  are  naturally  born, 
in  order  to  create  a  spiritual  birth  in  us  as  soon  as 
possible  —  so  that  the  psychical  and  spiritual  con- 
sciousness will  dawn  together  and  not  separately,  so  that 
we  will  wake  up  in  this  world  and  find  ourselves  both 
American  and  Christian  children  at  one  and  the  same 
time. 

HOW  WE  MAKE   OUR  OWN  SONSHIP 

But  if  we  have  nothing  to  do,  and  can  do  nothing, 
to  make  ourselves  children  of  God,  we  have  a  great 
deal  to  do  not  to  become  children  of  sin,  by  letting 
our  lower  animal  nature  overcome  our  spiritual  nature. 
For  to  preserve  that  fair  and  beautiful  sonship,  which 
God  through  His  Church  creates  in  us,  will  more  than 
tax  all  our  powers,  and  without  that  help  which  comes 
through  the  Holy  Spirit  and  His  Church  in  confirma- 
tion, our  lives  will  end  in  failure. 


i6o  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

In  the  beginning  we  take  no  part  in  our  own  de- 
velopment except  to  eat  and  grow ;  but  after  the  Holy 
Spirit  through  the  Christian  Church  has  regenerated 
us,  through  which  we  know  that  God  is  our  Father, 

—  in  a  word,  become  conscious  of  our  divine  kinship, 

—  from  this  time  on  we  will  have  to  make  ourselves 
children  of  God  by  fighting  our  battles  in  our  souls 
with  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil.  God  is  ready 
to  help  us,  and  the  grace  which  comes  through  the  gift 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  fellowship  in  His  Church  is  at 
our  disposal,  but  it  is  our  battle  now,  it  is  our  fight; 
henceforth,  it  will  be  sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive 
or  perish.  So  far  we  have  done  nothing,  everything 
has  been  done  for  us  to  make  our  sonship;  but  for- 
ever after  we  have  been  brought  to  the  age  of  account- 
ability, if  that  sonship  of  God  which  comes  through 
the  Spirit  of  God  and  which  the  Church  has  trained 
and  nurtured  in  us  is  to  amount  to  anything,  it  must 
be  by  our  loyally  taking  our  place  in  the  family  of 
(k)d,  and  battling  for  righteousness  in  this  world  in 
which  God  has  placed  us. 

god's  responsibility  to  us 

By  starting  and  adhering  to  the  fundamental  truth 
revealed  by  Christ,  that  the  tie  binding  us  to  God  is 
that  of  kinship,  we  see  why  children  have  always 
been  made  members  of  the  Church,  the  family  of 
God.  It  is  a  queer  idea  of  a  family  that  has  no 
children  in  it.  A  family  without  a  child  is  a  desolate 
thing,  and  where  are  we  going  to  rear  and  train 
children  if  not  in  a  family?    And  what  is  a  family 


THE   CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  i6i 

for  if  not  to  rear  and  train  children?  Because  the 
Church  is  the  family  of  God,  and  all  children  are  God's 
children,  first  psychically  and  then  spiritually,  there 
is  no  other  place  for  the  child  but  in  God's  house,  in 
order  that  he  may  grow  up  in  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  God,  his  heavenly  Father.  It  is  the  duty  of 
a  father  to  prepare  a  home  for  his  children,  protect 
them,  and  nurture  them,  which,  if  he  can  do  and 
fails  to  do,  makes  him  unworthy  to  be  a  father. 

Some  time  ago  we  were  hearing  a  good  deal  about 
the  peculiarity  and  central  idea  of  the  Chinese  religion, 
which  is  ancestor  worship.  While  ancestor  worship 
is  one  half  of  the  truth  of  religion,  it  was  about  all 
there  was  of  the  older  conception  of  religion.  It  was 
something  which  bound  only  one  way.  It  was  their 
conception  and  idea  that  the  child  was  under  all  the 
obligation  to  the  father,  and  the  father  under  no 
obligation  to  the  child.  The  older  theologies  of  the 
world  taught  that  God  was  an  irresponsible  despot, 
and  could  do  as  he  pleased  with  man,  and  was  under 
no  obligations  to  man. 

Christianity  completes  this  one-sided  idea  of  religion, 
and  dwells  upon  the  obligations  of  the  father  to  the 
child,  as  well  as  the  obligations  of  the  child  to  the 
father.  Christianity  emphasizes  the  rights  of  the 
child.  For  we  ought  to  remember  more  frequently 
than  we  do  that  no  child  can  take  any  part  in  bring- 
ing itself  into  existence;  no  child  was  ever  asked  to 
be  born ;  without  its  will  or  consent  life  is  forced  on 
the  child.  This  places  the  father  imder  never  ending 
obhgations,  unending  duties,  and  never  d3dng  respon- 
sibilities to  the  child. 


i62  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

And  is  not  this  the  kind  of  religion  Christianity 
has  been  proclaiming  from  the  housetops  ever  since 
it  has  been  in  the  world  ?  Is  not  this  the  whole  long 
story  of  the  age-long  revelation  of  God  contained  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  ?  God  loving  us  while 
we  did  not  love  Him,  sending  His  rain  upon  the  just 
and  unjust  alike,  giving  us  from  day  to  day  our  daily 
bread,  forgiving  us  our  sins  seventy  times  seven,  seek- 
ing, finding,  and  saving  us  when  lost?  While  Him- 
self sinless,  sharing  with  man  his  shame  and  degrada- 
tion, so  that  if  ^'I  go  down  to  hell,  thou  art  there 
also  "  ?  This  is  the  revelation  of  God  contained  in  the 
Bible,  and  do  you  wonder  at  the  omnipotent  power 
that  Book  has  over  the  kingdom  of  human  souls,  and 
why  the  Christian  asserts  that  it  contains  the  perfect 
and  final  revelation  of  God  and  man,  and  the  only 
eternal  religion  there  can  be,  or  ever  has  been,  in  the 
world?  God  does  not  repudiate  His  responsibilities 
growing  out  of  His  kinship  to  us.  The  character  of 
God  revealed  in  the  Bible  is  Jehovah  Sabaoth,  a  man 
of  war  more  marred  than  the  sons  of  men,  who  does 
not  say  go,  but  follow  me  !  He  that  is  greatest  of  all 
is  the  servant  of  all,  is  the  supreme  and  crowning 
glory  of  the  Christian  God,  and  is  the  secret  of  His 
eternal  power  over  spiritual  souls. 

THE   THREE   THINGS   WHICH   CONSTITUTE   THE   CHURCH 

The  family  is  the  unit  on  earth  and  in  heaven ;  and 
loving  worship  based  on  the  fact  of  kinship  is  all 
there  is  of  religion ;  which  is  ancestor  worship,  child- 
worship,  and  brother-worship.     Religion  is  that  which 


THE    CHRISTIAN   CHURCH  163 

binds  the  universe  together  all  the  way  round  in  every 
direction.  The  Creed  of  Christendom  therefore  is 
and  ought  to  be  but  a  short  and  condensed  summary 
of  this  tie  of  kinship  which  binds  us  to  God ;  who  is 
our  Father  Almighty,  binding  His  family  in  one  in- 
dissoluble whole. 

.  But  every  family  must  have  its  system  of  morals 
and  code  of  conduct.  If  the  tie  of  kinship  makes  the 
family  of  God,  what  only  code  of  conduct  can  con- 
tinue to  bind  it  together  after  it  is  made  ?  Evidently 
nothing  less  than  perfect  love,  given  under  ten  articles 
and  specifications,  the  whole  duty  of  man  to  God 
and  to  his  neighbor,  as  contained  in  the  ten  command- 
ments. 

But  why  hold  up  to  man  a  perfect  code  of  conduct 
thousands  of  years  before  he  is  able  to  embody  it  in 
a  life  daily  lived?  Why  say  unto  man,  "this  do  and 
thou  shalt  live,"  when  man  is  not  going  to  do  it  and 
die?  Why  not  lower  the  standard  until  it  comes 
within  our  reach?  Because  nothing  less  can  satisfy 
the  father  than  that  the  child  be  as  perfect  as  he 
is  perfect;  because  man  can  grow  only  by  having 
something  above  his  head,  which,  in  trying  to  reach, 
stretches  his  stature  upwards;  because  nothing  less 
than  this  can  satisfy  our  moral  nature  created  in  the 
image  of  God ;  because  our  hearts  cry  out  within 
us  that  this  is  the  only  system  of  morals  we  can 
ever  love,  and  is  the  only  code  of  conduct  we  ought 
to  obey. 

But  how  is  one  ever  to  get  the  help  and  inspiration 
to  live  the  Christian  life  ?  They  who  have  been  most 
successful  in  living  the  Christian  life,  and  therefore 


i64  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

have  the  best  right  to  be  our  guides  in  this  matter, 
tell  us  that  this  kind  can  come  forth  only  by  prayer 
and  fasting.  The  Hfe  of  God  can  be  Hved  by  the 
human  soul  only  to  the  extent  that  we  are  in  personal 
communion  with  God,  the  Hving  fountain  of  our  life. 
The  secret  source  of  the  living  spring  is  not  found  by 
digging  beneath  in  the  earth  but  in  the  rain  which 
descends  from  heaven;  so  the  secret  source  of  the 
Christian  life  daily  lived  flows  from  communion  with 
the  unseen  God,  to  whom  the  child  is  taught  to  pray 
in  this  manner  —  Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven, 
hallowed  be  thy  name,  thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will 
be  done,  on  earth  as  in  heaven. 

You  clearly  see  that  the  Creed  of  Christendom, 
therefore,  is  nothing  more  than  a  statement  of  the 
ties  of  kinship  which  create  and  bind  the  family  of 
God  together ;  the  ten  commandments  is  the  perfect 
system  of  morals  and  code  of  conduct  on  earth  and 
in  heaven ;  and  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  the  bond  of  per- 
sonal communion  of  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds 
with  the  infinite  Father  of  us  all. 

Do  you  not  see  how  sublimely  simple  religion  is? 
Nothing  more  nor  less  than  kinship  of  God  and  man 
and  the  facts  which  grow  out  of  this  kinship.  All  of 
it  is  contained  in  the  Creed,  the  Ten  Commandments, 
and  the  Lord's  Prayer ;  in  which  we  find  the  mutual 
obligations  and  duties,  relations  and  responsibihties, 
privileges  and  friendships,  of  the  family  of  God  on 
earth,  in  Hades,  and  in  heaven ;  and  he  who  shapes 
his  course  by  these  will  never  make  shipwreck  on  the 
great  high  seas  of  life,  but  reach  in  safety  the  haven 
where  he  would  be.     Therefore  when  the  child  can 


THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH  165 

say  the  Creed,  Ten  Commandments,  Lord's  Prayer, 
and  other  parts  of  the  Church  Catechism  set  forth 
for  that  purpose,  he  is  to  be  brought  to  the  Bishop  to 
be  confirmed  by  him,  so  that  he  may  continue  to  tread 
in  them  all  the  days  of  his  life. 


XIII 

ESSENTIALS  OF  MEMBERSHIP  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

What  we  must  believe  and  do  to  be  good  men  and 
good  women  are  the  essentials  of  membership  in  God's 
Church.  What  I  can  believe  or  not  believe,  what  I 
can  do  or  leave  undone,  and  be  none  the  better  or 
worse  man  for  so  doing  and  believing,  is  a  non-essential 
of  Church  membership.  The  conditions  of  Church 
membership  ought  to  be  the  conditions  of  salvation. 
To  be  a  real  member  of  the  one  Church  of  God  is  to 
be  in  the  way  of  salvation ;  not  to  be  a  member  of  it 
is  to  be  on  the  road  to  ruin.  This  is  what  we  mean 
when  we  say,  I  believe  in  The  Holy  Catholic  Church. 

What  all  men  must  beheve  and  do  to  be  saved  from 
a  sinful  life  is  the  faith  of  the  Catholic  Church.  If 
more  than  this  is  made  necessary  for  membership  in 
the  Church,  that  instant  the  Church  becomes  a  sec- 
tarian society,  because  it  has  added  over  and  above 
the  essentials,  non-essentials.  It  has  made  it  neces- 
sary for  a  man  to  become  a  member  of  our  religious 
club,  to  beheve  and  do  things  which  men  can  believe 
and  do  and  be  the  worst  men  in  the  world ;  not  believe 
and  not  do  and  be  the  best  men  in  the  world. 

SECTARIAN  SOCIETIES 

Fifty  years  ago  we  had  genuine  sectarian  societies 
in  this  land.     Each  and  every  one  lorded  it  over  God's 

i66 


ESSENTIALS   OF   MEMBERSHIP  167 

heritage,  making  any  and  every  condition  of  member- 
ship they  saw  fit  —  honestly  beheving  and  teaching 
that  a  man  could  not  be  saved  unless  a  member  of  our 
sectarian  society.  For  this  is  the  only  way  any  church 
can  originate:  by  convincing  people  that  they  cannot 
be  saved  unless  they  act  and  believe  as  we  do. 

The  Christian  Church  never  would  have  been  organ- 
ized if  the  people  who  lived  at  the  time  of  its  organiza- 
tion had  not  been  convinced  that  '^In  the  name  (the 
character)  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  none  other  is  there 
salvation. '^  It  was  only  when,  and  as,  and  to  the 
extent,  that  they  lost  faith  in  the  power  of  ''the  shed- 
ding and  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats 
and  heifers  "  to  save  them  from  their  sins  did  they 
abandon  Judaism  and  believe  that  Christ  was  ''the 
way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  '^ ;  to  whom  their  prophets 
pointed,  of  whom  their  sacrificial  system  was  typical, 
and  in  whom  it  was  fulfilled ;  that  He  had  "come  not 
to  destroy  anything  but  to  fulfil  all  things,"  did  they 
become  Christians. 

And  so,  that  which  made  the  origin  and  perpetua- 
tion of  the  Catholic  Christian  Church  possible  is  also 
the  cause  of  the  origin  of  all  sectarian  Christian  so- 
cieties; namely,  that  the  conditions  of  membership 
in  his  sectarian  society  are  absolutely  essential  to 
salvation.  When,  however,  that  which  separates  the 
Sect  from  all  other  Christians  is  acknowledged  to  be 
a  non-essential  of  salvation,  its  raison  d'etre  is  dead. 

While  the  method  of  worship  in  the  Church  is  non- 
essential, the  great  and  overwhelming  majority  of 
Christians  think,  and  perhaps  will  always  think,  that 
the  Church  ought  to  have  a  liturgical  form  of  worship, 


i68  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

that  her  ministers  ought  to  be  clothed  in  garments 
befitting  the  dignity  and  majesty  of  the  worship  of 
Almighty  God;  that  the  hymns,  anthems,  and  Te 
Deums  ought  to  Hft  the  hearts  of  the  worshippers 
heavenward  upon  the  wings  of  sublime  music,  that  the 
very  building  ought  to  be  a  sermon  in  stone;  ought 
to  be  all  glorious  within  with  statuary,  painting,  altar 
lights,  and  ritual  worship,  so  that  the  moment  the 
worshipper  enters  the  door  by  the  baptismal  font  he 
knows  that  he  is  in  the  house  of  the  Almighty  Father, 
and  falls  low  upon  his  knees  worshipping  Him  with  his 
whole  heart,  mind,  soul,  and  body.  But  these,  how- 
ever good  in  themselves,  are  non-essentials;  a  man 
can  as  acceptably  worship  his  Almighty  Father  in  his 
shirt  sleeves  in  a  log  hut,  upon  the  bare  sands  by  the 
sounding  waves,  and  upon  the  mossy  bank  in  the 
lonely  forest,  as  in  the  grandest  cathedral  ever  erected 
by  man.  The  essentials  of  the  CathoHc  Church  are 
the  conditions  of  its  membership. 

What  must  a  man  do  and  believe  to  be  a  member  of 
the  Catholic  Church  of  God?  I  beHeve  these  four 
questions  and  answers  are  the  absolute  essentials, 
and  absolutely  all  of  them. 

Question.  Dost  thou  renounce  the  devil  and  all  his 
works,  the  vain  pomp  and  glory  of  the  world,  with  all 
covetous  desires  of  the  same,  and  the  sinful  desires  of  the 
flesh,  so  that  thou  wilt  not  follow  nor  be  led  by  them  ? 

Answer.  I  renounce  them  all,  and  by  God's  help 
will  endeavor  not  to  follow  nor  be  led  by  them. 

Question.  Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles  of  the 
Christian  faith  as  contained  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  ? 

Answer.  I  do. 


ESSENTIALS   OF   MEMBERSHIP  169 

Question.   Wilt  thou  be  baptized  in  this  faith  ? 

Answer.   That  is  my  desire. 

Question,  Wilt  thou  obediently  keep  God's  will  and 
commandments,  and  walk  in  the  same  all  the  days  of 
thy  life  ? 

Answer.    1  will  by  God's  help. 

This  is  what  a  person  must  beHeve  and  do  to  become 
a  CathoHc  Christian.  This  is  what  he  must  believe 
and  do  to  be  saved  from  his  sinful  life.  This  is  what 
he  must  beHeve  and  do  to  be  a  Christian  at  all.  Here 
is  that  Christianity  which  is  rapidly  becoming  common 
and  universal  among  all  sectarian  Christians,  which  is 
enabhng  the  most  spiritually  minded  among  us  to 
gladly  and  joyfully  say :  ^'  It  is  not  necessary  for  a  man 
to  be  a  member  of  any  sect  to  be  saved;  it  is  only 
necessary  for  him  to  be  a  Christian." 

Let  us  go  over  what  it  takes  to  make  a  man  a 
Christian  and  see  how  wonderfully  it  draws  us  all 
together. 

Question.  Dost  thou  renounce  the  devil  and  all  his 
works,  the  vain  pomp  and  glory  of  the  world,  with  all 
covetous  desires  of  the  same,  and  the  sinful  desires  of  the 
flesh,  so  that  thou  wilt  not  follow  nor  be  led  by  them  ? 

This  summed  up  in  one  word  is  repentance,  and  is 
what  repentance  means.  Can  a  sinful  man  become 
a  Christian,  be  saved  from  his  sins,  unless  he  repents  ? 
Could  I  become  a  member  of  any  Christian  Society 
without  promising  to  do  the  things  involved  in  this 
question  ? 

Questions  2  and  3.  Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles 
of  the  Christian  faith  as  contained  in  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  and  wilt  thou  be  baptized  in  this  faith  ? 


I70  THE    CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

The  first  question  demands  on  the  part  of  the  person 
repentance ;  the  second  question  demands  faith ;  the 
third  question  asks  for  an  open  avowal  of  this  faith. 

The  simplest  form  in  which  the  Christian  Faith 
and  Creed  appear  is:  *' Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved. "  But  what  does  it 
mean  to  beheve  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  The  Lord 
Jesus  said:  *'I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me, 
the  Father  will  send  the  Spirit  and  I  will  send  the 
Spirit.  Ye  shall  be  baptized  not  many  days  hence 
with  the  Holy  Spirit." 

So  Christ  in  his  last  command  summed  up  what  it 
is  to  believe  in  Him,  and  condensed  it  into  the  brief 
baptismal  formula  of  the  trinity :  *' All  power  is  given 
unto  me  in  heaven  and  earth :  Go  ye,  therefore,  and 
make  disciples  of  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatso- 
ever I  have  commanded  you :  and  Lo  I  am  with  you 
always  even  to  the  end  of  the  world."  (Matthew 
28 :  18-20.) 

This  forever  fixes  the  Christian  faith  so  that  the 
first  Christian  knew  it  as  well  as  the  last  one  will. 
It  is  faith  in  God  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost. 
This  faith  can  never  be  added  to  nor  subtracted  from 
and  remain  Christian.  And  baptism  into  the  Chris- 
tian faith  is  baptism  of  men  into  God,  so  that  we  may 
become  the  Hving  temple  of  the  living  God,  who  is 
above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  you  all. 

The  Christian  Creed  is  behef  in  God  the  Father, 
what  He  is  and  does ;  the  Son,  what  He  is  and  does ; 
the  Holy  Ghost,  what  He  is  and  does.     It  will  always 


ESSENTIALS   OF   MEMBERSHIP  171 

be :  ''I  believe  in  God  who  is  the  Father,  Creator  of 
Heaven  and  earth.  And  in  Jesus  Christ  His  Son,  Our 
Lord,  conceived  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  was  crucified, 
dead  and  buried :  He  descended  into  hell,  rose  again 
the  third  day  and  ascended  into  Heaven.  I  believe 
in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  the 
Communion  of  Saints,  the  Forgiveness  of  sin,  the 
Resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  Life  Everlasting." 

This  you  see  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  believing 
in  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  what  each 
respectively  is  and  does;  the  greatest  possible  condensa- 
tion being,  '^  Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou 
shalt  be  saved."  Can  a  person  become  a  member  of 
any  denomination  without  a  confession  or  open  avowal 
of  this  faith  ? 

Question  4.  Wilt  thou  obediently  keep  God's 
holy  will  and  commandment  and  walk  in  the  same 
all  the  days  of  thy  life  ?  I  wish  you  to  notice  particu- 
larly the  answer  to  this  question.  How  can  one  say 
yes  unqualifiedly  to  that  question  when  he  knows 
that  he  is  going  to  break  God's  holy  will  and  com- 
mandment ?  If  the  Christian  Church  asked  any  one 
to  answer  that  question  by  a  plain  yes,  I  would  never 
ask  it. 

And  yet,  how  can  a  man  be  saved,  unless  he  does 
keep  God's  holy  will  and  commandment?  Nothing 
impure  and  unclean  can  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Is  not  this  the  only  way  any  of  us  ever  was 
or  will  be  saved:  by  opening  our  hearts  and  letting 
God  come  into  our  lives  and  purify  them  ?  The  only 
right  answer  that  can  be  given  to  this  question  is: 


172  THE   CHURCH    UNIVERSAL 

I  in  myself  am  not  able  to  keep  God's  holy  will  and 
commandment,  and  never  can  nor  will  be  able  to  save 
myself.  God  alone  is  able  to  do  this  great  thing; 
and  only  as  He  incarnates  Himself  in  me  —  only  as 
His  mind  becomes  my  mind,  His  love  my  love,  His 
spirit  my  spirit  —  can  I  obey  His  commandments, 
and  His  holy  will  become  my  will. 

So  the  man  conscious  of  his  own  weakness,  but 
believing  in  the  Almighty  power  of  God,  says  :  I  will, 
by  God's  help.  I  know  of  no  words  in  any  language 
which  express  such  an  utter  sense  of  humility,  and 
at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  words,  such  an 
unbounded  assurance  of  power  as  these  words:  I 
will,  by  God's  help.  This  has  been  the  secret  source 
of  power  in  men  ever  since  the  days  of  Enos  the  son 
of  Seth  when  men  began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  the 
Lord.  The  psalmist  says :  By  the  help  of  the  Lord  I 
will  get  me  the  victory  over  mine  enemy.  And  by  the 
help  of  the  Lord,  kings  have  ruled  wisely  upon  their 
thrones,  statesmen  have  made  righteous  laws  in  par- 
liaments and  congresses,  men  and  women  have  lived 
nobly  and  grandly  in  grinding  poverty,  and  patriots 
have  lifted  the  heel  of  the  tyrant  from  the  neck  of  the 
oppressed.  By  the  help  of  the  Lord  the  thief  has  been 
made  an  honest  man,  the  liar  the  truthful  man,  the 
sot  the  sober  man ;  and  by  the  help  of  the  Lord  men 
have  conquered  their  sins  and  kept  God's  holy  will 
and  commandment. 

In  conclusion  I  beg  you  to  take  note  of  several 
things.  These  questions  and  answers  are  the  only 
conditions  of  membership  that  the  Universal  Chris- 
tian Church  ever  has  required.    They  are  summed 


ESSENTIALS   OF   MEMBERSHIP  173 

up  in  three  words:  repentance,  faith,  and  obedience. 
Before  a  sinful  man  can  be  saved,  he  must  repent  of 
his  sins,  believe  in  God,  and  obey  His  commandments. 
To  the  extent  that  we  do  this  God  saves  us  by  incar- 
nating Himself  in  us  as  in  Jesus. 

The  Universal  Church  makes  no  non-essential  a 
condition  of  membership ;  for  the  sole  purpose  of  the 
Church  is  to  do  the  work  Christ  did  while  He  was  in 
the  flesh,  to  save  us  from  sin.  So  all  her  manifold 
forms  of  worship  and  varied  kinds  of  activity  make 
us  better  and  more  useful  men,  by  making  us  more 
Christ-like. 

Beyond  these  simple  questions  and  answers  the 
Universal  Church  of  Christ  has  no  cut-and-dried 
theology.  She  does  not  attempt  to  fetter  the  think- 
ing of  any  man,  but  lets  each  man  do  his  own  the- 
ology, or  none  at  all,  so  long  as  he  does  not  attempt 
to  bind  it  upon  another  as  orthodoxy. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  two  members  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  have  the  same  theology,  but  we  all  have  the 
same  religion.  In  the  one  Church  of  Christ  there  are 
Calvinists,  Methodists,  High  Churchmen,  Low 
Churchmen,  Broad  Churchmen,  Ritualists,  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  How  can  we  all  live  together 
in  peace  in  the  one  Church  of  Christ?  Because 
Christ  is  big  enough  to  comprehend  us  all,  welcomes 
us  all,  died  for  us  all,  and  is  the  Saviour  of  us  all.  This 
is  the  explanation  that  explains  it  all.  Because  all 
these  differences  of  theology  and  ritual  that  divide 
us  are  non-essentials :  but  when  it  comes  to  the 
essentials,  we  all  hold  them  with  the  vise-like  grip  of 
steel;   believe  them  with  our  whole  heart,  soul,  and 


174  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

strength,  and  assert  them  with  all  the  power  of  the 
infallibility  of  our  Lord  and  Master. 

What  is  salvation  ?  Christ  is  salvation,  the  author 
of  salvation,  and  we  are  saved  to  the  extent  that  we  are 
like  Him.  Be  it  known  unto  you  that  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  none  other  is  there  salvation. 

And  what  must  one  do  to  be  saved  ?  That  which  is 
necessary  for  us  to  believe  and  do  for  Christ  to  live  in 
us.  Believe  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt 
be  saved.  Why?  Because  if  I  do  truly  beHeve  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  with  my  whole  heart,  mind, 
soul,  and  strength,  I  live;  and  yet  not  I,  but  Christ 
liveth  in  me.  And  these  are  the  essentials  of  member- 
ship in  the  Church  of  God  because  the  essentials  of 
salvation  now  and  forever. 

"Till  the  stars  grow  old, 
Till  the  sun  grows  cold,    * 
Till  the  leaves  of  the  Judgment  Book  unfold." 


XIV 

COME  TO  YEARS  OF  DISCRETION 

(To  Be  Confirmed) 

Religion  has  been  defined  as  that  which  binds  us 
to  God.  What  then  are  the  bonds  which  bind  us  to 
God?  Many  answers  have  been  given  to  this  ques- 
tion, and  every  different  answer  has  made  a  different 
theology,  which  has  been  falsely  called  a  religion. 

It  would  take  me  entirely  too  far  afield  to  give  you 
even  a  catalogue  of  the  various  answers  men  have 
given  to  this  question.  Chief  among  them,  however, 
have  been  two  or  three  conceptions  which  we  must 
analyze  and  understand,  because  by  transcending 
them  the  Christian  Religion  has  been  historically 
developed. 

The  first  conception  is  that  God  is  simply  a  Creator, 
the  great  unknown  power,  outside  of  us  and  forever 
beyond  us,  making  us  what  we  are.  He  is  the  Creator 
and  we  are  the  things,  God  having  about  the  same 
relation  to  us  that  a  carpenter  has  to  his  wagon  — 
us  the  things  unknowing,  and  impossible  for  us  to 
know,  Him  the  Creator  of  us  the  things.  All  we  have 
to  say  about  this  conception  is  that  if  this  is  the  true 
bond  which  binds  us  to  God,  then  we  are  God's  things, 
and  cannot  know  Him  any  more  than  a  wagon  can 
know  its  carpenter  creator. 

175 


176  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Others  have  risen  above  this  conception;  as,  for 
instance,  the  Mohammedan  conception,  which  makes 
God  an  irresponsible  Almighty  despotic  Czar,  whom 
we  are  to  fear  and  serve,  because  it  would  be  an 
exceedingly  dangerous  thing  to  offend  such  an  al- 
mighty despot,  armed  with  unlimited  and  eternal 
means  of  excruciating  torture.  If  this  is  the  true  bond 
which  binds  us  to  God,  then  indeed  He  is  the  abso- 
lute master  and  we  are  the  absolute  slaves,  made  for 
His  own  pleasure  and  for  His  own  profit.  If  so, 
Allah  il  Allah  is  the  only  true  God,  and  Mohammed 
is  His  prophet  for  all  mankind. 

But  in  the  far-away  past  ages  of  the  world,  in  the 
person  of  Abraham  dwelling  in  the  plains  of  Shina, 
a  nobler  conception  was  vouchsafed  to  mankind.  His 
conception  of  religion,  that  is,  the  bonds  binding  us  to 
God,  is  that  neither  of  an  unknown  agnostic  creator 
God,  nor  that  of  an  irresponsible  despotic  Czar  ruling 
an  infinite  number  of  cringing  slaves,  but  that  of  an 
infinite  Creator  who  is  at  the  same  time  the  friend  of 
man,  and  who  reveals  Himself  by  entering  into  cove- 
nant relations  with  man.  The  Jewish  conception  of 
God  is  that  the  bond  between  God  and  man,  in  addi- 
tion to  that  of  creator,  is  such  love  as  exists  between 
friends.  God  the  almighty  creator,  protector,  and 
friend  of  man,  the  covenant  bond  of  friendship  being 
the  ten  commandments.  This  is  truly  a  noble  and  an 
eternally  true  conception  of  God,  that  of  the  loving 
friend  of  man  —  which  transcends  many  people's 
idea  of  God  to-day. 

They  conceived  of  this  friendship  of  God  as  extend- 
ing to  them  not  as  individuals  only,  but  as  families, 


COME  TO  YEARS   OF  DISCRETION       177 

tribes,  and  as  a  nation  —  even  to  the  little  children  and 
babies.  Therefore  there  arose  among  them  three 
rites,  or  sacraments,  embodying  and  teaching  in  a 
most  effective  way  the  gist  and  essence  of  their  idea 
of  these  bonds  which  bind  us  to  God  —  circumcision, 
confirmation,  and  the  sacrificial  meal  of  the  passover. 

God  was  not  only  the  friend  of  the  grown-up  people, 
but  of  every  child  in  the  land  the  moment  he  was  born. 
The  outward  and  visible  sign  among  them  of  this  was 
the  rite  of  circumcision.  Because  he  was  a  Jew,  God 
was  his  friend,  and  therefore  he  was  circumcised. 
The  child  did  not  have  to  do  anything  to  make  God 
his  friend,  God  was  that  already,  and  therefore  at 
eight  days  of  age  he  was  circumcised. 

No  Jew  ever  doubted  that  God  was  his  friend;  it 
was  taught  him  at  his  mother's  knee,  and  he  drank 
it  in  with  his  mother's  milk.  It  was  the  spiritual 
atmosphere  which  shaped  his  life,  as  the  snow  and  ice 
of  the  north  shape  the  vegetation  of  the  arctic  regions, 
and  the  equatorial  sun  does  that  of  the  tropics. 

He  was  never  taught  to  make  God  his  friend,  but 
he  was  taught  to  make  himself  the  friend  of  God,  and 
to  Hve  worthily  of  the  friendship  of  God,  and  to  return 
that  friendship  of  God  with  which  He  had  befriended 
his  fathers  all  the  days  of  their  lives.  So  just  as  soon 
as  the  child  had  come  to  years  of  discretion,  at  about 
twelve  years  of  age,  as  soon  as  the  child  had  been 
taught  and  understood  what  a  friend  God  had  been  to 
the  nation,  at  that  most  critical  and  plastic  period 
when  childhood  is  budding  into  manhood,  the  child 
came  forward  and  openly  proclaimed  his  friendship 
to  God,  took  upon  himself  for  himself  his  covenant 


178  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

vows  of  allegiance,  and  joined  in  the  third  great 
national  sacrament,  the  passover  supper. 

After  having  been  trained,  nurtured,  and  reared 
in  the  admonition  of  the  Lord,  he  now  confirms  that 
good  teaching,  and,  taking  upon  himself  all  its  duties 
and  privileges,  is  admitted  into  the  citizenship  of  this 
friendly  host  of  the  Lord.  He  had  remembered  his 
Creator  and  friend  in  the  days  of  his  youth,  when  the 
evil  days  had  come  not,  nor  the  years  drawn  nigh 
when  he  could  say  that  he  had  no  pleasure  in  them. 
For  he  had  taken  that  step  which  alone  can  make  it 
possible  for  the  years  never  to  come  in  which  we  will 
have  no  pleasure  in  them,  that  step  which  can  turn 
the  evil  of  the  days  to  come  into  a  blessing,  by  pro- 
claiming and  living  up  to  that  friendship  with  which 
God  had  befriended  him  all  the  days  of  his  life. 

To  the  spiritual-minded  Jew,  religion,  the  bond 
which  binds  us  to  God,  is  the  sacred  and  holy  ties  of 
friendship  which  walks  and  takes  sweet  counsel  to- 
gether. But  the  religion  which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
revealed  teaches  that  the  bond  binding  together  God 
and  man,  while  containing  all  the  sweetness  of  friend- 
ship, has  in  it  depths  of  love  deeper  and  more  sacred 
than  friendship,  for  the  bonds  which  bind  God  and 
man  together  are  the  bonds  of  the  kinship  of  Father, 
Mother,  and  Child. 

So  the  Christian  religion  destroyed  nothing  in  the 
grand  old  revelation  of  God  given  in  Jewish  conscious- 
ness, but  deepened  its  significance,  added  to  it,  fulfilled 
it,  by  revealing  that  the  friendship  of  God  to  man  is  the 
kinship  of  Fatherhood,  and  the  friendship  of  man  to  God 
is  that  of  Sonship.     This  has  always  been  the  bond 


COME   TO   YEARS   OF   DISCRETION       179 

binding  us  to  God,  though  men  did  not  know  it  till 
Christ  revealed  and  demonstrated  it.  Henceforth 
and  forever  there  is  no  room  for  any  other  religion,  for 
when  men  have  once  steadily  fixed  their  gaze  upon  the 
substance  of  this  eternal  truth  of  the  Christian  religion, 
nothing  else  satisfies  the  aspirations  of  our  minds  and 
the  hunger  of  our  souls. 

So  I  stand  up  before  every  creature  made  in  the 
image  and  likeness  of  God,  whether  dwelling  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames  or  Congo,  the  Hudson  or  the 
Ho-ang-ho,  and  say  you  have  nothing  to  do  to  make 
yourself  a  child  of  God,  and  you  can  do  nothing  to 
make  yourself  a  child  of  God,  for  God  and  His  Church 
make  you  His  child,  but  you  will  have  your  hands  full 
not  to  become  a  child  of  sin;  in  fact  in  your  own  un- 
aided power  you  will  be  sure  to  become  so,  and  trail 
in  the  foulness  of  the  gutter  that  fair  image  of  God  in 
which  you  have  been  made. 

Because  you  are  a  psychic  child  of  God  by  natural 
birth,  and  in  order  that  that  birth  may  not  make  you 
a  child  of  sin,  you  are  made  a  member  of  the  Church, 
the  household  of  God,  as  soon  as  you  are  born,  and 
then  trained  and  nurtured  in  it  until  you  come  to 
years  of  discretion. 

So  far  you  have  done  nothing  for  yourself  except 
to  eat  and  grow.  God  and  His  Church  have  given 
you  your  sonship  as  a  free  gift,  but  now  you  have  come 
to  years  of  discretion,  and  if  you  are  to  remain  a 
Christian,  you  must  make  yourself  one.  You  have 
at  your  disposal  the  power  of  grace  which  comes 
through  prayer  to  assist  you,  the  help  which  comes 
through  the  society  of  Christian  fellowship,  to  help 


i8o  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

you  grow  in  that  sonship  which  the  Church  has  be- 
gotten in  you. 

It  is  yours  to  do  with  as  you  please.  It  is  yours  to 
take  all  that  has  been  given  you,  and  give  back  noth- 
ing in  return,  if  you  so  choose.  When  we  come  to 
years  of  discretion,  the  whole  wide  world  is  before  us 
in  which  we  can  play  truant  and  turn  prodigal  to  our 
heart's  content.  We  can  take  these  bodies  of  ours 
and  make  them  so  vile  and  filthy  that  the  dogs  on  the 
streets  will  turn  up  their  noses  at  us  and  run  away 
from  us  in  disgust. 

We  can  turn  this  body,  in  which  God  intends  the 
whole  universe  shall  dwell,  as  the  sun  does  in  the  shining 
dewdrop,  into  the  roaring  flames  of  hell.  This  mind 
which  was  made  for  the  uses  of  love,  friendship,  and 
affection,  we  can  make  so  filthy  that  nothing  except 
lies,  hate,  snakes,  monkeys,  and  horned  devils  will 
take  up  their  habitation  there,  turning  the  fair  palace 
of  the  mind  into  the  pandemonium  of  the  damned, 
for  we  have  come  to  years  of  discretion. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst  that  we  can  do.  We  can 
bring  our  father's  gray  hairs  in  sorrow  down  to  the 
grave,  wring  our  mother's  heart  until  it  breaks  with 
despair,  and  trample  under  foot  friendships  more 
precious  than  rubies.  Still  while  we  crucify  them  they 
will  love  us.  You  will  also  learn  that  the  sting  of  sin 
is  not  so  much  the  degradation  it  brings  upon  your- 
self but  the  pain  it  costs  others. 

And  upon  whom  does  our  sin  bring  pain?  When 
the  true  and  full  account  shall  have  been  footed  up,  we 
shall  find  that  our  sin  brings  pain  upon  everybody  and 
everything  in  the  universe.     The  world  of  mind  and 


COME   TO   YEARS   OF   DISCRETION       i8i 

spirit  are  so  intimately  connected  and  closely  bound 
together  that  when  I  sin  against  myself  or  any  other 
individual,  I  sin  against  all,  and  I  ask  forgiveness  of  all 
angels,  and  men,  and  God.  We  live,  die,  and  sin  as 
members  of  one  great  family  of  God,  so  that  we  are  a 
blessing  or  a  curse  to  all. 

And  what  do  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  child, 
having  come  to  years  of  discretion,  is  ready  to  be  con- 
firmed? Years  of  discretion  means  power  of  dis- 
tinguishing right  from  wrong,  and  making  an  intelli- 
gent choice  of  the  kind  of  a  life  one  would  like  to  live. 
When  a  boy  or  a  girl  is  passing  from  childhood  and 
entering  youth,  there  arise  a  feeHng  of  independence, 
and  a  wish  to  act  for  one's  self.  We  will  be  tempted 
to  shake  off  all  control  and  obligations  to  others,  try 
solely  to  please  ourselves,  and  use  our  discretion  to 
follow  our  own  weak,  selfish,  and  foolish  will.  Hith- 
erto our  religion  has  been  almost  altogether  a  matter  of 
direction  by  others ;  as  a  child  we  did  in  our  religious 
duties  what  we  were  bidden  to  do,  but  there  comes  a 
time  when  we  feel  ourselves  more  than  a  child.  We 
take  matters  in  our  own  hands  and  either  confirm  or 
disannul  what  has  been  done  for  us. 

If  at  this  critical  and  turning  point  in  our  lives  we 
let  the  grace  of  God  turn  into  a  safe  channel  these  new 
powers  of  which  we  are  growing  conscious,  and  here, 
on  the  threshold  of  expanding  life,  make  our  first 
independent  step  by  claiming,  asserting,  and  confirm- 
ing our  divine  sonship,  most  happy  are  we  in  making 
this  our  first  independent  step  in  the  path  of  godHness. 
Your  power  to  discern,  your  right  to  choose,  are 
recognized.     No  power  on  earth  or  in  heaven  can  do 


i82  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

it  but  yourself.  It  now  remains  for  you  to  prove  in 
the  truest  way  that  you  have  in  deed  and  in  truth 
come  to  years  of  discretion. 

But  however  important  the  part  one  is  to  take  in 
his  own  confirmation  —  and  it  can  hardly  be  exag- 
gerated, the  part  one  must  take  in  confirming  what 
the  Christian  Church  has  done  for  us  —  still  the  first 
question  which  ought  always  to  be  uppermost  in  our 
minds  is  that  we  are  to  he  confirmed  —  the  part  the 
Holy  Spirit  takes  in  our  confirmation.  For  our  help 
comes  from  the  unseen  God,  apart  from  whom  we  are 
as  weak  as  water,  but  by  His  help  we  can  be  made 
strong  to  do  and  to  serve. 

The  question  asked  every  one  when  he  is  confirmed 
is  as  follows  :  *'Do  ye,  here  in  the  presence  of  God  and 
this  congregation,  renew  the  solemn  vow  and  promise 
that  ye  made,  or  that  was  made  in  your  name,  at  your 
baptism ;  ratifying  and  confirming  the  same ;  and 
acknowledging  yourselves  bound  to  believe  and  to  do 
all  those  things  which  ye  undertook,  or  your  sponsors 
then  undertook  for  you?" 

So  confirmation  does  not  lay  upon  any  one  a  new 
obligation  not  resting  upon  him  already ;  it  is  acknowl- 
edging in  a  public  and  solemn  manner  the  bonds  of 
obedience  and  love  to  our  Heavenly  Father  and  to  our 
neighbor,  who  have  made  us  what  we  are;  and  the 
obligation  of  forsaking  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil,  which  if  not  forsaken  will  destroy  us.  These 
obligations  rest  upon  us  from  the  dawn  of  our  reason. 
This  is  what  God  whispers  in  the  conscience  of  every 
one  of  us  we  ought  to  do  the  moment  we  reach  the 
age   of   accountability.     We   ought   to   acknowledge 


COME  TO   YEARS  OF  DISCRETION       183 

our  kinship  to  God  and  man,  and  be  loyal  to  it,  by 
ratifying  and  confirming  the  same. 

The  public  recognition  of  this  our  duty  is  a  very 
serious  and  important  thing,  as  you  answer,  /  do, 
to  the  one  question  asked  you  when  you  come  to  be 
confirmed.  You  are  asked  to  answer  this  question 
audibly,  and  audibly  means  to  be  heard,  and  to  be 
heard  by  whom  ?  Your  parents  and  friends  who  come 
to  see  you  confirmed?  Your  pastor?  The  bishop? 
The  congregation?  Yes,  all  these,  and  more  than 
these.  God  Himself  will  hear  you.  Our  Father  in 
Heaven  will  hear  it  from  you  His  child.  He  who 
died  upon  the  cross  to  save  you  will  hear  you.  The 
Holy  Spirit  who  is  to  confirm  you  will  hear  you. 

How  can  you  ?  How  dare  you  ?  Shall  you  not  be 
afraid?  We  could  not  and  we  dare  not  make  this 
promise  were  it  not  for  the  thought  to  which  utter- 
ance is  given  by  the  very  next  words  you  hear.  For 
immediately  after  you  have  spoken  these  words,  the 
Bishop  says,  expressing  the  faith  and  confidence  of  the 
Church,  ''Our  help  is  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

Then  we  need  not  be  afraid.  Weak  in  ourselves, 
yet  in  the  strength  of  the  Lord  we  may  be  strong. 
I  know  of  no  words  more  comforting  and  beautiful, 
no  words  expressing  at  one  and  the  same  time  such 
assurance  and  power  and  humility,  as  ''I  will  by  the 
help  of  the  Lord."  When  the  help  of  the  Lord  is  back 
of  the  human  /  will,  all  things  become  possible. 

The  three  factors  which  unite  in  confirmation  are  the 
Spirit  of  God,  yourself,  and  the  Christian  Church.  In 
baptism  you  are  the  passive  agent  receiving  the  spiritual 
life  which  God  and  His  Church  give  you.     In  confirma- 


i84  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

tion  you  are  an  active  agent,  for  you  must  by  an  act  of 
your  own  free  will  and  accord  make  this  spiritual  life 
your  own  life.  The  most  that  the  Church  and  the 
Spirit  of  God  can  do  for  you  is  to  help  you  to  make  a 
righteous  decision.  God  gave  you  your  free  will,  and 
it  is  yours  till  you  choose  to  give  it  to  Him.  For  better 
or  for  worse  God  made  you  free,  and  you  will  be  free 
till  the  end  of  time.  God's  Spirit  alone  can  prepare 
any  one  for  confirmation,  and  for  that  Spirit  you 
yourself  must  pray:  ''O  God,  give  me  a  right  spirit 
and  create  a  clean  heart  within  me." 

To  any  one  who  is  thinking  of  being  confirmed  I 
suggest  that  he  daily  pray  such  a  prayer  as  this: 
"Almighty  God,  my  Heavenly  Father,  who  hast 
created  me  in  Thy  image  and  likeness,  and  came  down 
from  heaven  to  redeem  me,  and  through  thy  Holy 
Church  hast  created  my  spiritual  sonship,  and  now 
hast  called  me  to  a  knowledge  of  this  my  wonderful 
sonship,  give  me  the  power  to  live  worthily  in  the 
duties  of  this  sonship ;  send  thy  Holy  Spirit,  the  Com- 
forter, and  daily  increase  in  me  thy  manifold  gifts  of 
grace;  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding,  the 
spirit  of  counsel  and  ghostly  strength,  the  spirit  of 
knowledge  and  true  godliness;  and  fill  me,  C  God, 
with  the  spirit  of  Thy  Holy  fear,  now  and  forever." 
And  in  answer  to  this  prayer  God's  Holy  Spirit  will 
prepare  you  for  confirmation,  and  give  you  that  assist- 
ance which  will  make  you  strong  as  you  take  your 
place  in  the  family  of  God,  prepared  for  you  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world;  make  you  strong  to  resist 
temptation,  stand  up  for  the  right,  and  battle  for  good 
all  the  days  of  your  life. 


COME  TO   YEARS   OF   DISCRETION       185 

One  more  thought  taken  from  the  confirmation 
service  —  '^confirmation  is  to  be  ministered  to  the 
more  edifying  to  them  that  receive  it."  This  word 
edifying  means  building  a  temple.  What  has  this  to 
do  with  confirmation  ?  If  we  turn  to  the  Epistle  to 
the  Ephesians,  we  shall  see  that  [God  intends  us  to  be 
built  as  Hving  stones  in  His  temple  of  spiritual  hfe. 
Turn  to  the  First  Book  of  Kings  and  we  shall  see  that 
the  temple  in  the  earthly  Jerusalem  is  a  type  of  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  which  is  the  kingdom  of  God. 
God  intends  you  to  have  a  place  in  that  temple  of 
spiritual  life.  However  large  the  building  may  be, 
its  smallest  stone  is  needed  for  its  perfection  and  com- 
pleteness. 

God  intends  you  for  a  place  in  this  temple  of  life. 
You  would  be  incomplete  without  this  temple,  and 
the  temple  would  be  incomplete  without  you.  If  not, 
why  did  God  create  you  differing  from  all  other 
souls?  Why  did  He  redeem  you?  Why  has  He 
called  you  to  a  knowledge  of  your  sonship  ? 

What  a  grand  thought  that  such  a  destiny  is  yours  ! 
Will  you  not  be  a  living  stone  in  God's  infinite  temple 
of  Hfe?  Confirmation  is  for  edifying;  that  is,  build- 
ing you  in  your  niche  in  that  temple.  As  long  as  you 
play  truant  and  turn  prodigal,  the  temple  cannot  be 
finished.  The  whole  family  of  God  on  earth  and  in 
heaven  will  sorrow  for  you  till  you  come.  Minor 
discords  will  be  in  its  music  till  your  voice  swells  the 
chorus  into  perfect  harmony.  The  ninety  and  nine 
will  be  left  in  the  wilderness  until  you  come  home. 
The  infinite  God  will  seek  thee  sorrowing  till  He  finds 
thee,  for  when  my  father  and  mother  forsake  me,  the 


i86  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Lord  taketh  me  up.  God  does  not  desert  His  own. 
Until  salvation  come  to  all,  His  happiness  is  in  saving 
the  lost. 

We  say  that  we  believe  that  we  have  in  the  character 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  the  perfect  reve- 
lation of  God.  I  often  wonder  whether  we  beheve 
that  or  are  merely  playing  at  make-believe.  He  was 
a  man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief,  more 
marred  than  the  sons  of  men.  Was  God  that  kind  of 
a  God  for  only  thirty-three  years  ?  Or  is  He  eternally 
that  kind  of  a  God  ?  Did  Christ  reveal  a  temporary 
God,  who  suddenly  took  it  into  His  head  to  share  the 
griefs  and  sorrows  of  His  children?  Some  day  you 
will  wake  up  to  the  truth,  and  have  this  heathenish 
conception  of  God  rudely  shattered,  when  it  is  borne 
into  your  soul  that  you  by  your  sins  are  now  causing 
God  pain,  and  wounding  Him  only  as  a  sinning  child 
can  wound  a  loving  parent.  Some  day  your  eyes 
will  be  opened  and  you  will  see  that  men  have  always 
been  causing  God  pain,  and  that  Calvary  is  not  only 
the  revelation  of  the  pain  that  God  once  for  all  suffered 
in  a  few  moments  of  time,  but  is  the  sacrament  of  the 
eternal  miracle  of  God's  most  patient  love,  fathomless, 
immense,  infinite,  and  eternal ;  and  that  we  are 
wounding  such  love  will  bow  us  in  the  dust  of  shame 
and  remorse,  as  we  beat  upon  our  breasts  and  cry, 
God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner  !  O  God,  I  am  a  very 
beast  before  Thee  !  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
Thy  son ! 


XV 


TO  DO  MY  DUTY  IN  THAT  STATE  OF  LIFE  TO  WHICH  IT 
SHALL  PLEASE  GOD  TO  CALL  ME 

"  And  he  put  forth  a  parable  to  those  which  were  bidden,  when  he 
marked  how  they  chose  out  the  chief  rooms ;  saying  unto  them,  when 
thou  art  bidden  of  any  man  to  a  wedding,  sit  not  down  in  the  highest 
room ;  lest  a  more  honorable  man  than  thou  be  bidden  of  him ;  and 
he  say  unto  thee,  Give  this  man  place ;  and  thou  begin  with  shame  to 
take  the  lowest  room.  But  when  thou  art  bidden,  go  and  sit  down  in 
the  lowest  room;  that  when  he  that  bade  thee  cometh,  he  may  say 
unto  thee,  Friend  go  up  higher :  then  shalt  thou  have  worship  in  the 
presence  of  them  that  sit  at  meat  with  thee.  For  whosoever  exalteth 
himself  shall  be  abased;  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted." 

"To  do  my  duty  in  that  state  of  life  unto  which  it 
shall  please  God  to  call  me,"  means  neither  the  "Caste 
System"  of  the  East  nor  "Young  America."  I  once 
heard  a  high  dignitary  in  Long  Island  say,  "Just  look 
at  these  Irish  !  When  they  were  in  Ireland,  they 
scarcely  had  decent  rags  to  their  backs;  now  they  dress 
as  well  as  gentlemen  and  think  themselves  a  good  deal 
better." 

To  this  audible  remark  I  made  no  comment,  but 
thought  that  they  would  not  have  to  be  very  high  in 
the  order  of  genus  homo  to  be  better  than  some  who 
call  themselves  such,  and  by  inheritance  ought  to  be 
so.  So  far  as  their  clothes  are  an  outward  evidence  of 
their  increased  self-respect  and  laudable  ambition  to 

187 


i88  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

rise  and  make  the  most  of  themselves,  they  ought  to 
be  bidden  Godspeed. 

This  remark  called  my  attention  to  the  unchange- 
ableness  of  imregenerate  human  nature  through  all 
the  ages,  and  if  I  had  beheved  in  reincarnation,  I 
would  have  said,  here  is  one  of  the  mummied  aristo- 
crats of  Egypt  come  to  Hfe  again,  wishing  to  establish 
here  in  America  the  old  caste  system  of  Egypt  and  In- 
dia, which  is,  that  the  child  must  do  what  the  father 
did  —  if  shoemaker,  the  child  must  be  shoemaker;  if 
butcher,  the  child  must  be  butcher  —  wear  the  same 
cut  of  coat  and  live  as  much  like  his  father  as  two  peas 
in  a  pod.  This  is  the  Caste  System  of  the  East  which 
the  free  and  easy  and  unlimited  wilderness  life  of 
America  has  done  about  all  it  can  to  break  up.  But 
on  the  other  hand  it  has  developed  that  spirit  and 
attitude  called  ''Young  America,"  which  refuses  to 
submit  himself  or  herself,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  any 
"governors,  teachers,  spiritual  pastors  and  masters"; 
or  to  order  themselves  lowly  and  reverently  to  ''all 
my  betters";  because  there  are  no  such.  For  the 
motto  of  Young  America  is  "I  am  as  good  as  any 
other  man,"  which  means  that  I  am  a  little  better 
than  any  other  man.  While  of  course  the  inordi- 
nate conceit  and  vanity  of  all  this  are  extremely 
ludicrous  to  sensible  people,  where  it  is  not  worse, 
still  it  is  very  much  better  than  the  subservient  spirit 
of  the  East,  which  cramps  and  crushes  the  children 
into  the  same  unyielding  caste  of  the  fathers. 

But  if  "  to  do  my  duty  in  that  state  of  life  unto  which 
it  shall  please  God  to  call  me"  means  neither  the  Caste 
System  of  the  East  nor  Young  America,  what  does  it 


TO   DO  MY  DUTY  189 

mean?  These  words  of  the  Catechism  have  caught 
the  very  spirit  of  Christ,  as  recorded  by  St.  Luke, 
rebuking  on  the  one  hand  the  folly  of  overestimated 
power,  and  that  other  system  which  would  chain  a 
man  where  he  does  not  belong.  The  spirit  of  the 
passage  is  that  the  Master  places  the  man  where  he 
belongs,  because  his  merits  entitle  him  to  that  place. 
All  this  will  come  out  very  clearly  if  we  read  the  pas- 
sage from  the  Catechism  with  the  proper  emphasis, 
which  is,  ''To  do  my  duty  in  that  station  of  life  imto 
which  God  shall  call  me." 

It  may  be  that  where  we  are  born  is  the  place  to 
which  God  shall  call  us,  but  just  as  often  it  is  not.  We 
may  be  born  in  wealth  and  God  may  call  us  to  pov- 
erty, or  we  may  be  born  in  poverty  and  we  may  be 
called  to  wealth. 

It  may  be  that  God  shall  call  us  to  follow  in  the  busi- 
ness or  profession  of  our  fathers,  or  he  may  call  us  from 
a  very  humble  station  to  one  of  great  usefulness  and 
power  by  virtue  of  the  talents  he  has  given  us.  The 
history  of  the  world  shows  that  very  often  where 
we  are  born  is  not  that  station  unto  which  God 
calls  us.  Especially  is  this  so  in  the  greatest  ones  of 
the  earth,  for  very  few  are  born  great  and  achieve 
greatness  at  the  same  time. 

Our  happiness  and  usefulness  in  life  depend  not 
upon  where  man  places  us,  but  upon  our  finding  the 
place  unto  which  God  calls  us.  How  can  we  know  the 
station  unto  which  God  calls  us?  Sometimes  this  is 
as  clear  as  daylight,  and  then  it  is  one  of  the  knottiest 
problems  one  ever  attempted  to  unravel. 

The  first  thing  to  guide  us  is  in  what  direction  does 


I90  THE    CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

our  ambition  lie  ?  A  great  many  silly,  foolish  things 
have  been  said  about  ambition,  as  if  it  were  a  sinful 
thing  and  a  snare  of  the  devil.  Ambition  is  a  good 
thing,  and  without  it,  man,  woman,  or  child  never 
amounts  to  anything.  Ambition  is  to  man  what  mettle 
is  to  a  horse.  Of  course  it  can  be  abused  like  any  other 
thing,  as  fire,  for  instance,  with  which  we  can  either 
cook  our  food  or  burn  our  house  down. 

We  can  let  our  ambition  ruin  us,  and  it  is  a  very  easy 
thing  to  do  if  God  has  given  us  a  large  share,  and  we 
let  it  do  so ;  but  that  is  not  what  God  gives  us  ambi- 
tion for.  That  is  his  way  of  telling  us  that  he  has 
work  for  us  to  do  in  the  world,  and  one  of  His  methods 
of  guiding  us  to  that  work.  It  is  a  very  necessary,  I 
will  say  it  is  absolutely  necessary  equipment  for  the 
battle  of  Hfe,  so  necessary  that  you  never  saw  a  suc- 
cessful person  without  a  goodly  share  of  it. 

But  even  a  better  test,  at  least  as  essential  a  test, 
is  what  do  we  love  to  do  best?  If  the  thing  we  are 
most  ambitious  to  do,  and  the  thing  we  love  best  to 
do,  is  the  same  thing,  we  ought  to  fit  ourselves  to  do 
that  thing  and  try  to  do  that  thing,  always  remember- 
ing that  experience  must  be  the  final  test. 

If  one  goes  into  a  business  simply  for  the  money 
there  is  in  it,  or  because  it  may  be  considered  more 
honorable  than  another  business,  without  loving  that 
thing;  if  one  is  in  a  profession  simply  for  the  fame, 
honor,  or  its  social  position,  without  loving  that  pro- 
fession ;  besides  being  sure  to  make  a  failure  of  that 
business  or  profession,  to  what  else  shall  I  liken  it  ? 

Suppose  we  liken  it  to  marriage.  Certainly  no  one 
is  called  to  marry  a  woman  until  he  loves  her.     I 


TO   DO  MY  DUTY  191 

think  it  is  Carlyle  who  uses  words  something  to  this 
effect,  ''Happy  is  the  man  who  has  found  his  voca- 
tion." He  has  an  unfaiHng  source  of  pleasure  and 
happiness  whatever  disasters  may  overtake  him. 
To  make  a  useful  plow,  design  a  beautiful  dress,  cook 
a  wholesome  meal,  make  a  useful  home,  write  a  great 
poem,  carve  a  magnificent  statue,  the  joy  and  the 
pleasure  which  come  from  this  are  divine,  it  is  sharing 
the  creative  power  and  working  with  God.  Miss 
this,  and  you  miss  joy  and  happiness,  and  your  life 
is  a  failure,  however  successful  it  may  seem. 

There  is  a  certain  disgrace  attached  to  work,  but 
it  does  not  consist  in  what  it  is  generally  supposed  to 
consist.  Disgrace  in  work  consists  in  making  use- 
less, shoddy,  harmful  things;  and  also  in  doing  one 
kind  of  work  when  you  are  capable  of  doing  another, 
I  will  not  say  better  but  rarer  kind  of  work.  Then  the 
world  becomes  poorer  and  you  prostitute  your  powers. 

Suppose  the  Apostles  had  done  what  they  were 
asked  to  do:  abandon  the  Ministry  and  serve  tables! 
What  a  disgrace  it  would  have  been !  Not  because 
they  would  have  served  tables,  that  is  honorable 
enough,  but  other  and  rarer  kinds  of  work,  work 
which  they  only  could  do,  would  have  gone  undone. 

So  when  the  quarrel  arose  in  the  early  Church  over 
the  distribution  of  alms,  the  Apostles  said:  ''Seek  ye 
out  suitable  men  whom  we  may  appoint  over  this 
work,  for  it  is  not  meet  that  we  should  leave  the  word 
and  prayer  to  serve  tables." 

What  disgrace  would  have  attached  to  Shakespeare 
if  he  had  abandoned  the  task  of  writing  the  profound- 
est  poems  the  world  has  ever  known,  and  contented 


192  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

himself  with  being  a  fanner  at  Stratford  on  the  Avon ; 
to  St.  Paul  if  he  had  contented  himself  with  making 
tents,  instead  of  planting  the  church  in  Europe,  and 
writing  his  inspired  epistles.  Not  that  tent  making, 
serving  tables,  and  farming  are  not  as  honorable  and 
necessary  as  anything  else,  but  the  disgrace  would  have 
been  in  these  men  abandoning  what  God  had  called 
them  to  do,  to  do  something  else. 

The  saddest  thing  in  this  world  is  to  see  a  man  or  a 
woman  misusing,  abusing,  and  frittering  away  noble 
gifts  of  brain  and  heart  upon  things  not  unworthy 
in  themselves,  but  to  them  positively  disgraceful. 

But  we  ought  also  to  remember  that  if  God  calls 
us  to  a  certain  station  in  life  by  virtue  of  the  talents 
and  gifts  He  has  given  us,  we  must  make  that  calHng 
and  election  sure;  for  there  is  a  doctrine  of  Works 
as  well  as  of  Grace.  It  is  true  that  we  can  cultivate 
no  talents  and  gifts  which  God  has  not  given  us.  All 
the  scrubbing  in  the  world  will  not  polish  a  pebble 
into  a  diamond ;  but  what  I  am  objecting  to  now  is 
that  people  imagine  that  the  diamond  polishes  itself. 

They  hear  a  great  musician,  read  a  great  book,  or 
see  a  house  beautifully  and  artistically  arranged,  and 
they  imagine  that  the  person  does  this  thing  with  no 
expenditure  of  labor ;  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  these 
things  come  only  as  the  price  of  great  labor.  Perhaps 
not  at  the  time  of  creation,  but  the  whole  past  life 
has  been  a  preparation  —  all  life  has  been  the  gym- 
nasium in  which  every  faculty  has  been  made  alert, 
supple,  and  strong.  God  does  not  call  any  one  very 
high  who  does  not  know  how  to  work  systematically, 
tenaciously,  perseveringly,  and  bull-doggedly. 


TO  DO  MY  DUTY  193 

The  gifts  God  gives  us  are  the  first  call,  our  ambition 
shows  the  direction  of  the  call,  and  if  we  add  to  this 
love  which  will  wed  us  body  and  soul  to  our  business 
or  profession,  so  that  we  will  forsake  all  others  and 
cling  only  unto  her  for  better  or  for  worse  until  death 
us  do  part ;  and  then  if  we  will  work  so  that  it  will  ab- 
sorb us  by  day  and  we  will  dream  about  it  in  the  night, 
our  calling  and  election  will  be  sure,  and  there  is  no 
telling  how  high  God  may  call  us ;  but  if  we  are  not 
called  very  high,  as  the  world  judges,  no  matter:  in 
the  end  we  will  be  sure  to  hear  these  words,  "Well 
done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant.''  And  is  not 
that  enough  reward  for  any  mortal  man  ? 

The  talents  God  has  given  us,  which  we  have  faith- 
fully used  and  loved  —  not  envying  somebody  else's  — 
and  by  honest  untiring  industry  we  have  developed, 
which  we  have  linked  and  joined  to  the  creative  ac- 
tivities of  God,  by  making  useful  and  necessary  things 
for  humanity  —  is  not  this  what  it  means  ''to  do 
my  duty  in  that  state  of  life  unto  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  call  me"  ;  to  add  a  few  stones  to  the  temple  of 
life  —  is  it  not  worth  the  while  to  live  if  we  are  granted 
the  privilege  of  doing  this  ? 

God's  relation  to  humanity  in  the  Scriptures  is 
spoken  of  under  three  figures  of  speech,  all  of  which 
involve  cooperation  and  inhabitation  of  God  in  man. 

First,  humanity  is  called  the  body  of  God.  We,  by 
which  I  now  mean  our  spirits,  are  necessary  to  give 
life  and  form  to  our  bodies,  and  our  bodies  are  neces- 
sary instruments  for  our  work  in  this  world.  We 
live  in  the  body  and  the  body  lives  in  us,  both  vitally 
united.    So  God  lives  in  us,  and  we  in  him :  we  neces- 


194  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

sary  to  God,  and  God  necessary  to  us.  When  God 
wishes  a  thing  done  in  the  world,  he  calls  us  to  do  it, 
and  until  some  man  answers  that  call  it  goes  undone. 
God  in  this  world  works  through  and  under  the 
limitations  of  humanity,  as  we  work  through  and  under 
the  limitations  of  this  flesh-body.  God  is  not  some 
lonely  aristocrat,  wrapped  in  the  infinite  silence  of 
Heaven,  but  is  in  fellowship  and  in  communion  with 
his  creation,  his  children  ;  not  above  claiming  kin  with 
the  humblest,  though  Principalities,  Powers,  and  migh- 
tiest Archangels  stand  abashed  before  the  splendor 
of  his  awful  throne. 

Second,  this  communion  and  fellowship  of  God  with 
us  is  of  so  tender  and  sacred  a  tie  that  in  order  to 
bring  it  down  into  our  comprehension  it  is  compared 
to  that  most  holy  and  unselfish  love  known  on  earth  — 
that  of  Husband  and  Wife.  The  relation  of  God  and 
man  is  that  of  marriage. 

Thirdly,  God  compares  his  relation  to  us  under  the 
simile  of  a  temple,  which  man  builds  and  dwells  in. 
The  great  temple  of  life,  God  alone  does  not  build  that 
for  us,  but  we  must  cooperate  with  him  in  building  it. 

The  ages  upon  the  ages  in  which  it  has  been  build- 
ing, since  man  first  set  foot  in  the  garden  of  Eden  and 
ever  since  —  and  the  queer  hands  that  have  had  part 
in  building  it!  Infants  as  well  as  grown  people  and 
children;  Princes  and  Commoners;  artisans  and 
artists;  poets  and  bankers;  Pharaohs,  Caesars,  and 
Napoleons;  prophets  and  saints;  traitor  Judases, 
lying  Peters,  fanatical  murderous  Sauls  of  Tarsus 
converted  into  beloved  St.  Pauls  —  surely  God  mak- 
eth  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  and  serve  him,  includ- 


TO  DO  MY  DUTY  195 

ing  the  Devil  himself!  Why  should  not  they  too, 
after  they  have  repented  them  of  their  sins,  and  learned 
some  sense  in  hell,  and  are  willing  to  behave  themselves 
as  decent  folks  ought  to  do,  dwell  also  in  this  wonder- 
ful temple  of  life  all  have  had  a  hand  in  building  ? 
I  think  those  who  toiled  at  the  bottom  and  did  all  the 
dirty  work  ought  to  have  as  high  a  place  as  we  who 
have  done  the  frescoing  and  hung  the  pictures.  For 
the  Scripture  somewhere  speaks  of  the  first  being  last, 
and  the  last  first;  and  in  the  great  day  of  assizes  the 
Master  will  come  along  and  tell  some  of  us  who  have 
taken  high  seats  to  move  down  and  let  more  honorable 
men  have  precedence. 

But  if  God  calls  us  to  the  work  he  wishes  us  to  do 
in  the  world  through  our  ambition  and  love  of  cer- 
tain kinds  of  work,  he  does  not  always  do  so;  for 
insuperable  difficulties  may  arise  which  will  simply 
put  it  out  of  the  question  for  us  to  follow  the  bent  of 
our  dearest  ambition  and  choice  of  work.  And  when 
this  is  so,  one  begins  to  know  what  the  poet  Virgil 
meant  when  he  speaks  in  that  innocent-looking  little 
line  about  "  the  tears  of  things."  What  you  would 
give  your  last  drop  of  blood  to  do,  you  cannot  do 
without  trampling  under  foot  the  most  sacred  obH- 
gations  laid  upon  man  —  Honor  thy  Father  and  thy 
Mother! 

If  we  do  that,  the  most  brilliant  career  in  the  world 
is  not  worth  the  having,  and  we  would  certainly  not 
be  doing  our  duty  in  that  station  unto  which  God 
has  called  us.  Poverty  may  not  necessarily  do  this ; 
on  the  contrary  it  may  be  a  stimulating  spur;  still  it 
may  be  of  such  a  nature  as  to  make  one  lay  aside  his 


196  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

ambition  and  listen  in  other  directions  for  the  call  of 
God. 

Suppose  you  were  assured  of  a  brilliant  professional 
career,  and  then  duty  to  those  dependent  upon  you 
absolutely  demanded  that  you  give  it  up,  as  in  the  case 
of  Charles  Lamb ;  then  you  would  have  only  a  very 
small  knot  to  untangle  in  human  affairs  —  just 
enough  to  hint  at  the  real  'Hears  of  things,"  as  the 
stern-eyed  Maiden  called  Duty  took  you  by  the  hand 
and  said :  this  way  over  this  stony  road  and  through 
these  shadows  lies  the  call  of  God,  and  were  you  to 
make  the  conquest  and  put  your  hand  in  hers  —  well 
it  would  not  be  written  up  in  the  histories  of  the  world 
as  one  of  its  fifteen  decisive  battles,  but  nevertheless 
it  would  be  one  of  those  victories  on  which  the  destiny 
of  happiness  hangs,  —  something  far  more  important 
to  you  —  for  it  would  bring  no  remorse  to  your  soul, 
and  raise  no  ghosts  about  your  pillow  at  night  to 
damn  you  ! 

And  here  there  rises  up  before  me  a  picture  of  Life 
unutterably  sad  and  dazzHngly  brilliant.  It  is  the 
history  of  the  heroic  souls  who  have  hfted  higher  the 
walls  of  the  temple  of  life.  Why  have  not  its  heaviest 
stones  been  Hfted  into  place  by  the  healthy,  strong, 
and  magnificent  specimens  of  human  kind  ? 

Is  it  true  as  Dryden  has  said  that 

"  Great  wits  are  to  madness  near  allied 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide  ?  " 

Why  have  these  consumptive,  overwrought,  and 
nervously  strenuous  souls  worked  so  heroically,  as 
Alexander    Stephens,    Alexander    Pope,     Coleridge, 


TO  DO  MY  DUTY  197 

Homer,  Milton,  Beethoven,  and  the  crippled  Athe- 
nian Musician  saving  the  battle  by  his  inspiring 
music  ? 

They  put  us  to  shame,  show  us  what  can  be  made 
out  of  the  worst  conditions,  what  it  really  means  to  do 
our  duty  in  that  station  unto  which  it  has  pleased 
God  to  call  us.  And  because  they  were  valiant  men 
God  blessed  them  abundantly. 

I  have  had  people  tell  me :  ''I  am  utterly  useless 
now.  I  am  a  helpless  invalid.  What  can  I  do  in  the 
world  ?  "  And  I  reply:  "  You  can  do  a  great  deal  of 
good,  if  you  but  knew  it,  and  would  do  it.  One  of  the 
most  inspiring  persons  I  ever  knew  was  a  great  invalid, 
who  taught  all  who  came  in  contact  with  her,  patience/' 
And  is  not  this  one  of  the  greatest  needs  of  the  world  — 
patience!  The  lesson  Milton  at  last  learned  when  he 
wrote  this  beautiful  Sonnet  on  his  blindness  :  — 

"  When  I  consider  how  my  light  is  spent 
Ere  half  my  days,  in  this  dark  world  and  wide, 
And  that  one  talent,  which  is  death  to  hide, 
Lodged  with  me  useless,  though  my  soul  more  bent 
To  serve  therewith  my  maker,  and  present 
My  true  account,  lest  he,  returning  chide ; 
*  Doth  God  exact  day  labor  light  denied  ?  ' 
I  fondly  ask.     But  patience,  to  prevent 
That  murmur,  soon  replies,  '  Who  best 
Bear  his  mild  yoke,  they  serve  him  best.    His  state 
Is  kingly ;  thousands  at  his  bidding  speed, 
And  post  o'er  land  and  sea  without  rest ; 
They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait.'  " 

Only  stand  and  wait!  This  is  the  hardest  kind  of 
service!  Much  harder  than  to  post  o'er  land  and  sea 
without  rest. 


XVI 

WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION 

THE  TRINITY  OF  SIN  : 

THE  WORLD,   THE  FLESH,   AND  THE  DEVIL 

In  confirmation  we  promise  obedience  to  the 
trinity  of  righteousness  and  renounce  the  trinity  of 
sin.  When  we  properly  define  sin,  we  shall  find  that 
it  is  an  abuse,  misuse,  and  desecration  of  our  three- 
fold bodily,  mental,  and  spiritual  nature.  So  sin 
comes  to  us  in  a  threefold  form,  because  we  have  only 
a  threefold  nature  to  abuse,  misuse,  and  desecrate. 
And  that  threefold  form  in  which  sin  comes  to  us  is 
called  in  the  Catechism,  and  in  the  common  parlance 
of  men,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 

We  are  not  to  renounce  the  rightful  pleasures  of  the 
flesh,  on  the  other  hand  we  are  to  get  as  much  pleasure 
out  of  the  flesh  as  we  can,  and  the  way  to  do  this  is  to 
use  and  not  abuse  the  flesh,  to  rule  the  flesh  and  not 
let  the  flesh  rule  us.  What  we  are  to  renounce  is  not 
the  innocent  pleasures  of  the  flesh,  but  the  sinful  lusts 
of  the  flesh. 

In  like  manner  we  are  not  to  renounce  the  world, 
for  we  must  live  in  the  world  in  order  to  be  of  use  in  the 
world,  and  gain  that  all-round  development  of  our 
powers  which  comes  only  by  shaking  hands,  and  rub- 
bing shoulders  in  social,  business,  and  rehgious  inter- 

198 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION    199 

course  with  our  fellow-men.  What  we  are  to  renounce 
is  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  this  wicked  world.  We 
are  not  to  imagine  that  the  world  in  itself  is  sinful. 
The  world  is  as  good  as  when  God  pronounced  it  good, 
until  we  begin  to  unmake  it  by  abuse,  misuse,  and 
desecration. 

But  there  is  one  thing  which  we  are  to  renounce 
without  any  equivocation  or  mental  reservation  what- 
soever, and  that  is  the  devil  and  all  his  works.  What 
the  devil  and  his  works  are  I  shall  explain  more  m 
detail  later  on. 

What  we  are  now  clearly  to  see  is  that  sin  in  this 
threefold  form  has  assailed  all  men,  and  conquered  all 
men,  until  in  Jesus  sin  was  conquered  and  Satan 
trampled  under  foot,  and  because  He  has  done  so  there 
springs  up  in  our  hearts  the  hope  and  faith  that  we 
can  do  so  in  His  might  and  power. 

In  the  Bible  we  meet  these  three  tempting  powers 
on  two  most  important  occasions,  which  is  the  sym- 
bolic type  of  the  tragic  redemption  wrought  out  in 
every  soul  that  is  redeemed.  We  find  recorded  in  the 
third  chapter  of  Genesis  the  temptation  of  Adam, 
typical  of,  and  reenacted  in,  all  men  born  of  flesh. 

It  is  said  that  man  was  placed  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden,  which  means  that  all  men  are  created  in  inno- 
cence, knowing  neither  good  nor  evil.  But  in  the 
midst  of  this  garden  there  grows  a  tree  both  of  good  and 
evil,  which  God  revealed  to  Adam,  commanding  him 
not  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  evil.  Which  means  that 
sooner  or  later  there  arises  in  all  innocent  souls  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  at  which  time 
we  always  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  our  souls  command- 


200  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

ing  us  to  obey  our  knowledge  of  good  and  refuse  the 
evil.  For  the  moment  that  we  eat  of  the  tree  of  evil 
we  are  cast  out  of  the  garden  of  innocence  into  a 
world  filled  with  the  thorns  of  sin,  with  the  flaming 
sword  of  the  cherubim  turning  this  way  and  that, 
until  our  eyes  do  at  last  close  in  death. 

So  in  this  parable  of  the  temptation  and  fall  of  man, 
it  is  said  that  the  tree  was  *'good  for  food,"  which  is 
the  flesh  tempting  us,  saying  that  it  is  good  for  man  to 
live  by  bread  alone,  no  matter  how  we  get  this  bread. 
Let  us  make  our  highest  ambition  to  be  a  fat  sleek 
animal,  live  in  a  grand  house,  ride  in  an  elegant  rubber- 
tired  carriage,  make  this  our  ideal,  and  live  by  bread 
alone. 

It  is  also  said  that  the  tree  was  "pleasant  to  the 
eyes,"  which  is  the  temptation  of  the  world,  its  show 
and  its  appearance,  tempting  us  when  in  Rome  to 
do  as  Rome  does,  bow  a  willing  servant  and  cringing 
slave  at  the  shrine  of  the  changing  fashion  of  the  hour, 
whether  right  or  wrong. 

Lastly  it  is  said  that  the  tree  "was  to  be  desired  to 
make  one  wise,"  which  means  that  knowledge  apart 
from  goodness  is  the  wisdom  of  the  world  building 
its  towers  of  Babels  only  to  end  in  the  confusion  of 
tongues.  We  will  be  tempted  to  grow  in  that  wis- 
dom which  springing  from,  and  at  the  same  time 
increasing  spiritual  pride,  is  the  sin  of  the  devil. 

When  temptation  came  to  the  second  Adam  to  turn 
stones  into  bread,  He  answered,  thou  shalt  not  live 
by  bread  alone;  when  the  temptation  of  spiritual 
pride  came  to  Him  to  cast  Himself  down  from  the 
temple.  He  answered,  thou  shalt  not  tempt  the  Lord 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION   201 

thy  God;  when  the  temptation  of  the  world  came 
saying,  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  will  I  give  thee, 
if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me,  He  said,  get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan. 

At  the  first  time  this  threefold  temptation  gained 
a  great  victory ;  the  second  time  they  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  Jesus  an  utter  defeat,  and  in  His  strength 
every  son  of  man  can  conquer  them. 

Speaking  more  particularly,  what  does  one  mean 
when  he  renounces  the  devil  and  all  his  works?  By 
this  is  meant  to  renounce  that  self-willed  and  pre- 
sumptuous spirit,  which  is  satisfied  with  itself  and  its 
powers,  which  leads  us  away  from  God  and  goodness 
into  the  most  idolatrous  form  of  self -worship,  making 
us  inordinately  self-conceited,  and  a  nuisance  to  every- 
body who  comes  in  contact  with  us. 

The  truly  great  ones  of  the  earth  are  always  humble, 
never  satisfied  with  themselves,  because  they  know 
that  they  have  infinite  powers  of  growth,  and  however 
wise  and  learned  they  may  be,  it  makes  them  more 
childlike,  for  they  know  that  they  have  just  begun. 
Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit  for  they,  and  they  only, 
are  filled  with  the  riches  of  God's  infinite  Ufe.  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  Hkened  to  a  little  child,  because 
the  little  child  possesses  the  spirit  of  progress  by  virtue 
of  its  docility  and  teachableness,  which  we  must  for- 
ever keep  in  order  to  go  on  and  ever  on  in  the  growth 
of  the  knowledge  of  God. 

A  self-willed  and  presumptuous  spirit,  which  is  satis- 
fied with  itself  and  its  powers,  destroys  the  progressive 
spirit  of  man,  by  degenerating  into  the  worship  of 
self.    But  this  is  the  lowest  form  of  devil  worship. 


202  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

When  we  first  hear  of  the  devil,  he  is  tempting  others 
to  sin.  Every  one  who  worships  self  and  tempts 
another  to  sin  is  according  to  his  or  her  ability  a  he 
or  a  she  devil.  The  greatest  created  spirit  in  the  uni- 
verse who  is  tempting  others  to  sin  and  is  most  success- 
ful therein  is  the  devil  par  excellence,  which  the  Bible 
tells  us  is  one  who  falls  by  the  pride  and  imholy 
ambition  of  self -worship. 

Every  good  man,  woman,  and  child  is  an  incentive 
and  power  to  make  others  good,  and  every  sinning 
person  is  a  temptation  to  make  others  sin.  You  have 
influence,  perhaps  more  than  you  think,  with  compan- 
ions and  friends.  A  sneer,  a  laugh,  a  discouraging 
word  may  incline  the  wavering  balance  in  the  wrong 
direction,  or  induce  a  weak  child  of  God  to  sin.  Or 
an  invitation  coming  from  you,  asking  another  to  join 
you  in  sin,  may  lead  astray  one  who  but  for  that 
temptation  would  never  have  so  sinned  and  fallen. 
We  ought  to  take  the  utmost  care  never  by  ridicule 
or  persuasion  to  influence  another  life  in  the  wrong 
direction. 

In  confirmation  we  promise  to  renounce  the  devil's 
works.  And  what  more  devilish  work  can  we  do  than 
by  our  influence  to  hinder  the  work  of  God's  grace  in 
another  soul?  But  ought  we  not  to  do  more  than 
merely  refrain  from  hurting  another  soul?  Ought 
we  not  also  try  to  assist  him  in  doing  what  is  right? 
I  do  not  mean  to  advise  any  one  to  make  a  great  pro- 
fession about  his  religion ;  to  talk  much  or  cant  about 
it  —  this  is  nauseating.  But  in  a  quiet  way  you  can 
exercise  much  influence  for  good,  especially  by  the 
kind  of  a  life  you  lead,  and  doubly  so  by  what  you 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION   203 

are  rather  than  by  what  you  profess  to  be,  and  show 
that  in  truth  you  have  renounced  these  two  chief 
works  of  the  devil  —  encouraging  evil  and  discourag- 
ing good. 

The  power  of  the  world  makes  itself  felt  in  different 
ways  at  different  periods  of  Hfe.  In  earUer  years  it 
makes  itself  felt  as  a  temptation  leading  us  into  a  too 
great  regard  for  the  opinion  and  practices  of  others. 
I  of  course  am  not  referring  to  that  proper  deference, 
which  not  the  young  alone,  but  all  should  pay  to  those 
whose  example  is  worthy  of  imitation.  I  am  speaking 
of  the  ^'wicked  world,"  of  finding  yourself  among  those 
whose  standard  of  acting  and  speaking  is  not  that  of 
goodness,  and  then  of  your  being  afraid  or  ashamed 
of  being  different  from  them.  But  if  your  life  is  going 
to  be  worth  anything  to  yourself  or  to  others,  if  you 
are  going  to  use  the  spirit  of  ''ghostly  strength,"  if 
you  are  going  to  have  any  true  manhness  or  woman- 
liness in  your  character,  you  will  often  have  to  take 
an  independent  stand  and  act  differently  from  others, 
often  too  when  your  doing  so  will  be  most  difficult. 

But  do  not  think  that  the  Christian  life  consists 
in  taking  stands  like  a  balky  horse.  When  you  do  take 
a  stand,  let  it  be  on  some  eternal  principle  of  right, 
justice,  and  common  sense.  Let  it  be  upon  something 
you  are  sure  will  be  for  the  strengthening  of  weak 
knees  and  making  human  kind  happier  and  better. 
And  when  you  have  taken  your  stand,  and  are  sure 
you  are  right,  drive  ahead  with  all  your  might ! 

Later  in  life  the  world  will  make  its  power  felt  in 
another  way.  You  may,  through  God's  grace,  have 
formed  a  character  of  some  independence;    then  the 


204  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

care  of  this  world  or  the  deceitfulness  of  riches,  if  you 
make  haste  to  be  rich,  will  choke  the  good  seed,  and 
will  make  you  barren  and  unfruitful  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord  God  and  that  spirit  of  wisdom  which 
teaches  what  life  is  for.  The  spirit  of  the  world,  with  its 
narrow  views,  empty  pretences,  and  its  vain  shows, 
will  try  to  make  you  Hve  for  lower  aims.  But  if  we  in 
truth  renounce  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  the  world, 
we  will  not  run  the  risk  of  losing  our  souls  for  the  sake 
of  getting  rich  quick,  or  making  a  show  beyond  our 
means,'or  gaining  some  high  position  in  the  esteem  of  the 
world.  Yet  men  and  women  do  lose  their  souls  for 
such  petty  things  as  these.  By  losing  your  soul  I 
mean  your  self-respect,  your  peace  of  mind,  your  honor 
that  feels  a  stain  like  a  wound,  becoming  a  toady 
fawning  at  the  feet  of  others,  bought  by  the  smile  of 
some  worldling,  or  made  miserable  by  the  frown  of 
some  conscienceless  piece  of  clay.  Yet  men  and 
women  sell  their  souls  for  such  baubles  as  these,  and 
they  certainly  sell  out  cheap  in  the  world's  market 
of  vanity  fair. 

By  renoimcing  the  world  you  do  not  renounce 
innocent,  rational  amusements  and  pleasures.  You 
renounce  sinful  pleasures.  And  in  this  matter  of  pleas- 
ure we  must  put  duty  above  pleasure,  and  when  inno- 
cent pleasure  interferes  with  our  duties,  the  pleasure 
must  go  to  the  wall.  You  also  promise  to  renounce 
the  sinful  desires  of  the  flesh.  God  has  given  us  nat- 
ural feelings,  desires,  and  appetites;  has  given  them 
to  us  for  our  own  good,  and  has  joined  pleasure  to  their 
due  gratification.  But  if  we  follow  their  lead  for 
pleasure  alone,  as  a  dumb  animal  who  has  no  higher 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION   205 

nature,  the  flesh  will  gain  the  mastery  over  us.  We 
must  take  rest,  and  rest  is  very  pleasant,  but  if  for  the 
pleasure  of  rest  I  take  rest  when  I  do  not  need  it,  and 
when  I  should  be  at  work,  I  fall  into  the  sin  of  sloth. 
I  must  eat,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  do  so,  and  God  made 
it  a  delightful  thing  to  give  us  pleasure,  but  because 
of  this  pleasure  I  am  in  danger  of  becoming  a  glutton, 
and  so  with  all  our  appetites. 

There  are  two  things  in  this  life  that  it  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  do,  and  because  it  is  easy  to  do  there 
is  not  very  much  virtue  in  either.  We  can  throw 
down  all  the  restraint,  which  we  ought  to  place  upon 
the  appetites  of  our  flesh,  and  very  easily  become  a 
glutton,  plus  any  other  number  of  swinish  things. 
It  is  easy  to  do  this.  On  the  other  hand  we  can  go  to 
the  other  extreme  and  become  a  fanatic,  and  starve 
the  natural  appetites  of  our  bodies,  and  we  may 
honestly  persuade  ourselves  that  this  method  of  pro- 
cedure is  exceedingly  pleasing  in  the  sight  of  Al- 
mighty God.  And  here  let  me  add  that  this  is  the 
only  course  left  for  some  people.  With  them  it  is  a 
question  of  absolute  abstinence  from  pleasures  other 
people  can  indulge  in.  With  them  it  is,  if  thine  eye 
offend  thee,  pluck  it  out;  if  thine  hand  offend  thee,  cut 
it  off.  With  some  it  is  a  question  of  entering  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  halt,  lame,  and  blind,  or  not  at  all. 
And  we  ought  not  to  cast  stumbling  blocks  in  the  way 
of  these. 

While  it  is  comparatively  hard  to  do,  many  can, 
like  John  the  Baptist,  come  neither  eating  nor  drink- 
ing. But  the  Kfe  of  the  ascetic  is  not  the  hardest  nor 
the  best  kind  of  life  to  live.     The  hardest  thing  in  the 


2o6  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

world  to  do  is  to  practise  moderation  and  live  it,  and 
not  go  off  at  a  tangent  into  some  extreme.  The  hard- 
est thing  in  the  world  to  do  is  to  come  both  eating 
and  drinking,  yet  neither  a  glutton  nor  a  wine  bibber. 
This  is  the  way  the  Son  of  Man  did,  and  it  is  the  perfect 
thing  to  do. 

But  to  come  to  the  principle  of  the  matter,  we  must 
make  up  our  minds,  that  since  we  have  renounced  the 
flesh,  a  sin  of  the  flesh  cannot  be  excused  by  such 
excuses  as :  I  like  to  do  so  and  so,  it  is  very  pleasant  so 
to  act,  it  is  natural  so  to  do.  We  must  once  and  for  all 
settle  this  with  ourselves,  that  if  we  are  going  to  live 
an  earnest  Christian  life,  we  must  do  many  things 
we  will  not  like  to  do,  and  leave  undone  many  things 
that  we  would  like  to  do.  Unless  we  make  up  our 
minds  to  do  this  we  cannot  live  a  good  life,  nor  a  self- 
consistent  life  of  any  kind. 

To  sum  up  what  we  have  said  so  far:  when  I  say 
that  I  will  renounce  the  devil  and  all  his  works,  I 
promise  that  I  will  shun  presumption  and  pride,  and 
be  scrupulously  careful  in  no  way  to  encourage  evil 
or  discourage  good  in  another;  when  I  say  that  I 
renounce  the  sinful  desires  of  the  flesh,  I  promise  not 
to  let  the  natural  or  perverted  desires  of  my  flesh  be 
my  rule  of  conduct,  but  will  hold  them  in  subjection 
to  my  higher  spiritual  nature;  when  I  promise  to 
renounce  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  this  wicked  world, 
I  promise  not  to  let  the  opinion  of  others  be  my  rule 
of  conduct,  but  the  will  of  Almighty  God,  my  heavenly 
Father,  as  he  has  revealed  it  to  me  through  Christ- 
Jesus  our  Lord. 

And  still  I  would  not  like  to  leave  the  subject  just 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION    207 

here  because  I  feel  that  it  might  produce  in  your 
minds  a  one-sided  impression.  I  shall  therefore  go 
more  into  detail  as  to  what  it  means  to  be  worldly.  I 
do  not  call  worldly  the  beautiful  in  any  of  its  forms,  for 
a  sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  a  desire  to  create  the 
beautiful,  is  a  part  of  "our  image  of  God,"  our  soul's 
likeness  to  Him  who  made  everything  beautiful  in  its 
time. 

I  do  not  call  beautiful  houses  and  furniture  worldly, 
when  they  are  not  the  expression  of  mere  vulgar  am- 
bition and  vulgar  waste.  When  they  modestly  corre- 
spond to  our  means  and  the  situation,  they  are  the 
natural  surroundings  of  man,  the  natural  prince  at 
the  head  of  a  princely  creation,  to  whom  squalor  is 
disgrace  and  spiritual  insanity. 

Nor  are  taste  and  time  and  money  spent  in  adorning 
the  person  in  beautiful  dress  worldly.  The  young 
maiden  adorns  herself  instinctively,  and  when  this  is 
done  in  moderation  and  modesty,  it  is  her  most  Chris- 
tian duty  to  do  so.  It  is  her  natural  and  spiritual 
birthright  to  make  herself  as  beautiful  as  she  can. 
Consider  the  lilies  how  they  grow;  they  toil  not 
neither  do  they  spin,  yet  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was 
not  arrayed  like  one  of  these.  He  who  with  his  own 
hand  painted  the  wings  and  crest  of  the  birds,  who 
carves  and  sculptures  every  wave  cast  upon  the 
shore,  who  made  beautiful  the  human  form,  and 
that  most  exquisite  work,  the  human  countenance, 
He  who  can  do  nothing  that  is  ugly  any  more  than  He 
can  do  anything  that  is  foolish,  shall  we  slander  Him 
by  deforming  and  disgracing  the  human  body,  the 
high  temple  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ? 


2o8  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

Nor  do  I  call  a  handsome  way  of  living  or  the 
amusements  of  life  worldly.  I  wish  everybody  could 
live  handsomely  and  have  plenty  of  amusement,  and 
I  believe  they  will  yet  do  so  if  we  can  ever  make 
them  Christians.  As  to  amusements,  human  nature 
needs  them  as  much  as  it  does  work.  From  innocent 
diversions  the  mind  and  heart  come  back  with  new  and 
deeper  dehght  in  the  higher  objects  of  Hfe. 

Besides  we  who  live  in  the  house  of  our  Divine 
Father  ought  to  know  that  pleasure  is  in  itself  right 
and  is  our  birthright.  I  am  not  bound  even  to  show 
that  amusements  improve  my  health.  If  I  enjoy 
them  as  a  bird  does  its  flight,  that  is  enough,  so  I 
transgress  no  law.  Human  nature  demands  pleasur- 
able excitement,  and  if  not  taken  in  pure  forms,  will 
be  taken  in  gross  sinful  forms. 

But  when  amusements  are  such  as  to  discountenance 
better  things;  make  tasteless  sober  duties,  gentle 
affections;  the  duty  of  Hfe  homely;  if  your  Tyrian 
purples  make  the  stuff  of  every-day  duty  look  gray 
and  homespun  —  such  amusements  are  worldly  and 
most  decidedly  pernicious.  But  in  all  of  our  amuse- 
ments and  in  all  of  Hfe's  affairs,  let  us  not  impose  the 
rule  for  gray-headed  saints,  and  a  very  questionable 
rule  even  for  them,  upon  the  young,  calling  that  sin 
which  is  no  sin,  blackening  a  world  already  black 
enough,  and  forcing  the  live  human  being  to  become 
a  mummy. 

The  effect  is  either  to  drive  people  into  a  hypocritical 
sensualism,  or  open  opposition  to  religion,  and  to  their 
own  conscience,  while  Christ  and  His  pure  religion 
must  bear  the  blame  for  people's  distorted  and  diseased 


WHAT  WE  RENOUNCE  IN  CONFIRMATION    209 

imaginations.  Who  then  are  worldly  men  and 
women  ?  Worldly  men  and  women  are  those  who 
for  the  sake  of  the  wicked  world's  good  opinion,  or 
rank  in  its  corrupt  society,  sacrifice  their  better  selves, 
their  friends,  and  the  truth. 

Aspirations  for  good  society  we  all  must  approve, 
for  society  is  one  of  the  most  helpful  facts  about  us, 
but  by  good  society  I  mean  people  with  refinement 
and  thoughts,  with  good  hearts  and  inward  nobleness, 
and  to  sacrifice  something  to  make  such  people 
friends  is  wise  indeed.  But  the  worldly  man  or 
woman  takes  the  motto  of  Zadok,  the  founder  of  the 
great  sect  of  the  Pharisees  —  "separate  not  yourself 
from  the  majority."  If  the  majority  turned  Buddhist, 
how  long  would  the  worldly  man  or  woman  remain 
Christian  ?  So  they  snap  their  most  sacred  obliga- 
tions and  follow  still  the  changes  of  the  moon. 

There  are  several  sorts  of  worldlings.  There  is  the 
so-called  worldling  of  the  senses,  who  is  his  own  worst 
enemy,  but  may  be  true  and  kind  at  heart.  There 
is  the  worldling  of  vanity,  the  creature  of  a  silly 
imagination,  a  painted  butterfly  —  no  one  can  be 
very  harsh  with  this  kind.  But  the  genuine  worldling 
is  one  whose  soul  has  been  turned  into  cold  glittering 
selfishness;  the  poised,  cool,  calculating,  systematic 
worldling  of  a  devil,  who  shines  and  smiles  and  is  all 
iron  below ;  who,  if  fashionable  interest  back  him,  will 
set  his  iron  heel  on  the  most  sacred  truth  and  crush  the 
tenderest  heart  —  for  him  the  deepest  place  is  reserved 
in  hell. 

I  sometimes  wish  there  would  appear  new  Apostles 
on  the  earth  to  preach  common  honesty  and  honor, 


210  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

kind  hearts,  manliness  to  men,  and  womanliness  to 
women,  for  all  of  us  are  in  some  degree  tainted.  It 
is  impossible  to  stand  so  near  to  the  great  ocean  of 
worldliness  and  not  be  sprinkled  by  its  spray. 

Of  the  higher  and  more  universal  form  of  worldliness 
I  have  scarcely  spoken  at  all.  I  mean  that  imiversal 
exaggeration  of  the  world  that  now  is,  and  from  which 
we  are  so  soon  to  take  our  departure.  Immersed  in 
the  present  moment  and  in  the  things  of  the  sense  we 
forget  to  fling  open  the  windows  of  our  souls  and  let 
in  the  light  from  the  great  invisible  world  above  and 
beyond  us.  Why  so  eager,  anxious,  and  fretted  about 
the  things  which  perish  with  the  using  ?  Ah  !  gracious 
God  !  make  us  a  little  wiser ;  help  us  to  live  soberly 
and  righteously,  in  this  present  world,  looking  for  the 
coming  and  glorious  incarnation  of  the  eternal  Son 
of  God  in  us  as  in  our  blessed  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ. 

Note.  —  In  some  parts  of  this  chapter  and  in  "  Come  to  Years  of 
Discretion"  I  am  indebted  to  "The  Sevenfold  Gift,"  one  of  the  best 
tracts  on  Confirmation  I  have  ever  seen. 


XVII 

SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION 

In  the  days  of  Caesar  Augustus,  there  was  born  in 
Judea  a  child  whom  his  mother  called  Jesus.  After 
he  had  grown  to  manhood  His  wonderful  words,  His 
wonderful  deeds,  and  His  wonderful  life  bound  to  Him 
by  strong  ties  of  affection  a  band  of  disciples  of  pure 
and  spiritual  souls.  He  did  not  tell  His  disciples 
who  He  was.  He  let  His  wonderful  life  do  that.  His 
wonderful  words  of  truth,  His  miraculous  works  of 
mercy,  stirred  that  land  as  it  had  never  been  stirred 
before.  One  day  when  He  "came  into  the  coast  of 
Caesarea  Philippi,  He  asked  His  disciples,  saying, 
whom  do  men  say  I,  the  son  of  man,  am  ?  And  they 
said,  some  say  that  thou  art  John  the  Baptist ;  some 
say  Elias;  and  others  say  Jeremiah,  or  one  of  the 
prophets.  He  saith  unto  them,  but  whom  say  ye 
that  I  am?  And  Simon  Peter  answered  and  said, 
Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.  And 
Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  blessed  art  thou, 
Simon  Bar- Jonah :  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  re- 
vealed it  unto  thee,  but  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
.  .  .  Upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  Church,  and  the 
gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." 

And  upon  that  rock  has  the  Church  of  God  always 
been  builded :  upon  the  power  of  men  to  say,  as  St. 
Peter  first  said,  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 

211 


212  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

living  God."  Everywhere  the  simple  story  of  His 
life  has  been  told  by  lips  of  flesh  and  blood,  or  printed 
upon  the  page  in  cold  type;  men  have  confessed 
''Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God,  and 
our  Father  in  heaven  has  revealed  Him  unto  us/'  as 
He  did  unto  St.  Peter. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  simple  story  of  Him  has 
been  handed  on  from  generation  to  generation  by 
word  of  mouth,  by  a  succession  of  disciples  begotten 
of  Him,  continuously  through  those  who  beheved  in 
Him  from  the  beginning. 

Others  wrote  an  accoimt  of  Him  which  became  fixed 
in  the  four  immortal  Gospels,  which  will  live  forever 
as  the  high-water  mark  of  that  inspiration  with  which 
God  hath  inspired  men.  Men  will  not  let  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  and  His  Hfe  perish,  unless  they  sink  to 
the  level  of  brutes. 

When  men  hear  His  words  to-day,  as  they  did  1900 
years  ago,  they  say,  ''Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life."  The  more  we  know  of  His  marvellous  deeds  of 
love.  His  wonderful  death  of  sacrifice,  and  His  most 
wonderful  resurrection  into  glory,  millions  say  what 
Simon  Peter  first  said,  "Thou  art  the  Son  of  the  living 
God."  Not  because  an  infallible  Simon  Peter  said  it ; 
not  because  it  is  written  in  an  infallible  book;  but 
because  the  living  God  reveals  it  to  us.  As  long  as 
the  Christ  of  history  has  the  power  to  seize  hold  of 
men's  hearts  and  make  them  confess  with  their  hearts, 
mouths,  and  lives  —  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  son  of 
the  living  God"  —  so  long  will  His  Church  last.  This 
is  the  rock  upon  which  it  is  founded  —  upon  Christ- 
consciousness  in  the  human  soul. 


SOURCE   OF   AUTHORITY  IN   RELIGION     213 

Men  will  never  cease  to  believe  in  Christ,  for  He 
has  never  deceived  them.  Men  will  never  repent 
living  the  Christian  life,  because  it  always  satisfies 
them.  The  only  cause  of  repentance  we  men  will 
have  is  that  we  have  not  followed  more  closely  in  His 
footsteps.  We  have  faith  in  Christ  because  He  satis- 
fies the  hunger  of  our  souls.  For  with  Him  great 
light  springs  up,  and  life  is  radiant  with  the  glory  of 
God,  and  without  Him  we  sit  and  wring  our  nerveless 
hands  in  the  gloom  and  darkness  of  the  shadow  of 
death. 


THE  CREED  OF  CHRISTENDOM  GROWS  OUT  OF  CHRISTIAN 

EXPERIENCE 

So  Christ,  in  the  beginning  and  unto  the  end  of 
time,  draws  His  disciples  unto  Himself  by  His  marvel- 
lous personality,  and  the  high,  helpful,  and  inspiring 
truth  He  offers  to  men.  Virtue  and  life  go  forth  from 
Him  to  them  who  will  receive  it.  His  ''follow  me"  is 
powerful,  and  His  instruction  is  enlightening,  uplift- 
ing, and  transforming.  His  time  for  work  is  among 
us  in  the  flesh,  as  the  man  Jesus  was,  very  short,  and 
only  the  beginning  was  possible  during  His  brief  life 
upon  the  earth.  Yet  He  left  behind  Him  in  the  world 
a  group  of  men  and  women,  spiritually  changed  by  the 
touch  of  His  personality,  and  instructed  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  all  truth  and  life. 

Thus  Christ  is  the  creator  of  the  Christian  people, 
by  reproducing  and  begetting  Himself  in  every  indi- 
vidual disciple.  As  the  driving  wheel  is  the  embodied 
power  of   the  engine,   so   Christ  through   the  Holy 


214  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

Spirit  is  the  incarnate  personal  power  and  life  of  God 
awakening,  reproving,  consoling,  spiritualizing,  and 
opening  heaven  over  earth  for  all  mankind,  in  all  ages, 
in  all  climes,  and  in  all  races  —  for  He  is  all  in  all. 

So  Christ  made  and  makes  the  Christian  people, 
and  through  the  experience  we  undergo  in  being  made 
Christians,  the  universal  Creed  of  Christendom  is  born, 
ever  new  and  ever  old,  as  it  is  rewon  and  reproduced 
in  the  individual  and  in  the  world  everlastingly.  First 
Christian  life,  then  the  record  of  that  experience  per- 
petually reproduced  and  witnessed  in  us  —  the 
Apostles'  Creed. 

The  Creed,  we  ought  to  remember,  is  not  abstract 
intellectual  truth  like  mathematics,  but  the  highest 
truth  and  life  the  Church  of  God  knows  by  living  it. 
So  Christ  becomes  the  vital  living  possession  of  the 
Christian  people  by  becoming  their  life  —  I  no  longer 
live  but  Christ  lives  in  me. 

The  New  Testament  contains  the  record  of  this 
spiritual  experience,  through  which  we,  and  the  first 
Christian  people,  passed,  and  is  reproduced  in  all  men 
of  holy  and  humble  heart,  unto  the  end  of  time.  So 
whether  the  New  Testament  is  true  or  false,  inspired 
or  not  inspired,  no  one  is  competent  to  say  until  he 
is  inspired  to  live  the  Christian  life.  For  the  final 
and  absolute  test  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures  is  the  innumerable  hosts  of  Christian 
people  it  has  led  to  live  inspired  lives.  As  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge  said  long  ago:  ^'The  Bible  is  in- 
spired because  it  inspires  me." 

Nothing  but  the  immense  reality,  vitality,  and 
truth,  through  which  Jesus  and  His  disciples  passed, 


SOURCE   OF   AUTHORITY   IN   RELIGION     215 

could  have  brought  forth  the  Christian  Creed  as  a 
Hving  self-conscious  life.  We  greatly  misjudge  if  we 
think  that  the  Christian  faith,  as  formulated  in  the 
Creed  of  Christendom,  is  the  cool  adoption  of  a  set 
of  opinions  spun  out  of  the  intellect  as  a  philosophic 
speculative  doctrine.  It  is  the  record  of  the  glowing 
realization  of  a  world  of  spiritual  verities  first  lived. 
Then  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  mind  to  tell  the 
deepest  experiences  the  human  heart  has  ever  felt, 
and  the  formal  expression  of  the  profoundest  mys- 
teries the  human  spirit  has  ever  known,  lived,  and 
loved. 

Before  Christians  said  in  the  Creed  —  ^'I  believe 
in  the  forgiveness  of  sins"  —  their  sins  had  been  for- 
given. Peters,  Pauls,  and  Mary  Magdalenes  were 
telling  of  that  '^  peace  which  passeth  all  understand- 
ing," which  they  had  experienced  in  passing  from  the 
bondage  of  sin  into  the  liberty  of  the  children  of 
God.  And  herein  is  the  secret  of  the  tremendous 
power  of  the  Creed  of  Christendom  —  because  it  is 
the  Hving  experience  of  Christian  people.  So  a  Chris- 
tian people  came  into  existence,  created  and  begotten 
of  the  ever  living  Christ,  and  then  into  history  with 
their  personal  experience  formulated  as  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  which  will  live  forever,  because  it  is  alone  the 
true  answer  to  the  deepest  questions  mankind  has 
ever  put  to  itself,  (i)  To  know  whence  we  came  and 
our  relation  to  the  Author  of  the  universe;  (2)  to 
obtain  relief  from  the  guilt  under  which  our  conscience 
labors ;  (3)  to  have  before  us  a  perfect  ideal  of  moral 
rectitude;  (4)  to  obtain  definite  assurance  of  the 
destiny  which  awaits  us  beyond  the  grave. 


2i6  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

CHRIST  THE  ANSWER  TO  ALL  THESE   QUESTIONS 

Christ  Himself  is  the  answer  to  all  these  questions, 
and  to  any  other  question  we  may  ask  about  ourselves 
and  God.  When  we  ask  who  God  is,  Christ  replies : 
''He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father.  I  am 
in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me.  I  am  in  you 
and  you  in  me." 

When  we  ask  ourselves  what  perfect  man  is,  Christ 
replies :   ''Which  of  you  convinceth  me  of  sin  ?'' 

When  we  ask  ourselves  how  we  are  to  be  freed 
from  the  guilt  of  sin  and  the  consequences  of  sin, 
Christ  replies:   "I  am  the  propitiation  of  sin." 

When  we  ask  ourselves  what  is  our  fate  beyond 
the  grave,  Christ  replies :  "I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life." 

"O  man,  ask  me  any  question  you  please  and  I  am 
always  the  answer.  I  am  always  God's  way  to  man 
and  man's  way  to  God,"  says  Christ- Jesus. 

These  are  the  truths  upon  which  our  destiny  hinges, 
and  what  we  need  to  beUeve  to  be  saved.  And  be- 
cause all  these  truths  are  enshrined  in  the  Apostles* 
Creed,  beginning  with  "I  believe  in  God  the  Father 
Almighty"  and  ending  with  the  triumphant  shout  of 
"Life  everlasting,"  the  Church  of  God  asks  the  one 
simple  question:  "Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles 
in  the  Apostles'  Creed?"  Knowing  that  if  Christ  be 
lifted  up  He  will  draw  all  men  unto  Him  and  the 
Father  in  heaven  will  reveal  in  our  souls  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God,  planting  the  Church  upon  the 
rock  of  Christ-consciousness  in  the  human  soul, 
against  which  the  "gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail." 


SOURCE   OF  AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION     217 

THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  REFUSES  TO  BUILD  RELIGION 
UPON  THE  CHURCH  OR  BIBLE,  BUT  USES  THEM  AS 
WITNESSES  TO  THE  TRUTH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  RE- 
LIGION 

Belief  in  these  great  fundamental  facts  of  the  faith 
of  Christendom,  stated  so  simply  and  sublimely  in 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  is  all  and  absolutely  all  that  the 
Universal  Church  of  Christ  requires  one,  whether  lay- 
man or  minister,  to  believe  as  his  confession  of  faith. 

''Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles  contained  in  the 
Apostles'  Creed?"  This  is  the  only  question  the 
Universal  Church  of  Christ  permits  the  minister  to 
ask  one  concerning  his  faith.  No  minister  is  per- 
mitted to  ask  a  further  question  —  ^' Why  do  you  be- 
lieve the  Apostles'  Creed?"  The  Catholic  Church 
never  has  and  never  will  ask  a  person  that  question, 
however  much  others  have  thought  it  their  duty  to 
ask  it.  One  can  beheve  the  Creed  for  any  reason  that 
is  satisfactory  to  himself. 

Dost  thou  renounce  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the 
devil?  Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles  contained 
in  the  Apostles'  Creed?  Wilt  thou  be  baptized  in 
this  faith?  Wilt  thou  obediently  keep  God's  holy 
will  and  commandments  ?  The  Church  of  Christ  per- 
mits no  minister  to  ask  more  than  these  four  simple 
questions  and  answers  as  conditions  of  membership. 

The  moment  any  one  goes  beyond  these  simple 
questions  and  answers,  so  sublimely  simple  and  all- 
inclusive,  you  plunge  at  once  into  the  dreary  chaos  of 
combative  sectarianism,  and  divide  mankind  into  at 
least  three  hostile  camps ;  for  there  are  at  least  three 


2i8  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

well-known  reasons  people  give  themselves  why  they 
believe  the  Christian  faith.  One  man  says:  ^'1  be- 
lieve the  Christian  faith  because  the  Church  has 
taught  it  from  the  beginning,  down  through  all  the 
ages  back  to  Christ  and  beyond,  for  it  has  been 
taught  in  essence  and  substance  ever  since  'men 
began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord.'  "  So  the 
person  says,  I  believe  in  Christianity  because  the 
Church  teaches  it.  I  believe  the  Creed  upon  the  au- 
thority of  the  Church. 

I  reply:  ''That  is  satisfactory  to  some  of  the  pro- 
foundest  minds  the  world  has  ever  known,  and  has 
guided  an  innumerable  host  of  saints  over  the  fiery 
marl  and  burning  sands  of  incarnate  life  into  that 
peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding.  But 
that  is  your  own  private  affair;  the  Church  of  God 
cares  only  to  know  that  you  believe  the  Creed,  not 
why  you  believe  it." 

Another  man  says:  "I  believe  the  Creed  of  Chris- 
tendom because  I  believe  that  from  the  beginning 
there  have  been  men  whom  God  in  a  special  sense, 
above  and  beyond  all  other  men,  directly  inspired  to 
know  Him  and  His  eternal  truth,  and  that  through 
them,  and  through  them  alone,  God  made  the  perfect 
and  final  revelation  of  Himself  to  mankind.  I  be- 
lieve that  this  perfect  and  final  revelation  of  God  is 
contained  in  that  book  we  call  the  Bible.  I  believe 
the  Bible  first,  and  then  I  believe  the  Creed  because  it 
is  contained  in  the  Bible.  I  believe  that  the  Bible  is 
verbally  inspired  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  every 
word  of  it  the  ipse  dixit  of  God,  eternal,  immutable, 
and  infallible." 


SOURCE   OF   AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION     219 

I  reply:  ''That  is  your  own  private  affair.  The 
Church  cares  only  to  know  that  you  believe  the 
Creed." 

But  a  third  person  comes  and  says,  "I  would  be- 
lieve the  Creed  of  Christendom  if  there  was  no  such 
book  as  the  Bible,  and  no  one  else  in  the  world  be- 
lieved it  but  myself.  I  do  not  believe  the  Creed 
because  a  great  and  venerable  book  contains  it,  nor 
because  a  great  and  venerable  Church  has  taught  it 
from  the  days  of  Seth  to  the  present  time.  I  believe 
the  Creed  of  Christendom  because  my  reason  tells  me 
that  it  is  the  only  rational  thing  for  me  to  beHeve. 
I  know  that  I  did  not  create  myself.  I  know  that  I 
did  not  create  the  universe.  I  know  that  I  am  a 
spirit  and  that  there  is  infinite  Spirit,  who  is  in  the 
universe  and  in  myself,  in  my  image  and  likeness, 
however  much  He  is  infinitely  greater  than  I  am,  and 
however  much  He  differs  from  me  in  my  present  state 
of  development." 

To  such  an  one  I  reply,  "If  that  is  a  sufficient  reason 
why  you  should  believe  the  fundamentals  of  the 
Christian  faith,  that  is  your  own  affair,  and  God 
speed  you  in  getting  as  many  as  you  can  to  agree  with 
you." 

These  are  the  three  reasons  people  give  themselves 
for  believing  the  Christian  reHgion.  One  believes  it 
because  his  reason  convinces  him  that  it  is  true,  an- 
other bases  it  upon  the  Bible,  another  upon  the 
authority  of  the  Church.  The  Christian  rationalist 
bases  his  faith  upon  the  essential  reasonableness  of 
the  universe,  our  Roman  brethren  upon  the  teaching 
authority  of  the  Church,  and  our  Evangelical  brethren 


220  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

upon  the  authority  of  the  Bible.  The  Universal 
Church  of  Christ  says,  I  do  not  care  three  straws  why 
you  believe  the  Apostles'  Creed,  so  long  as  you  live 
by  it.  If  you  do  that,  you  will  be  saved,  and  if  you 
do  not,  you  will  be  lost ! 

Because  people  have  been  so  narrow  and  foolish  as 
to  think  that  it  was  necessary  and  binding  upon  all 
to  beheve  the  Creed  for  the  same  reason,  and  that 
people  who  could  not  give  the  same  reason  for  their 
belief  in  the  Christian  faith  could  not  work  and  wor- 
ship together  in  the  same  Church,  has  been  a  most 
potent  and  fruitful  cause  of  ignorant,  prejudiced, 
wasteful,  ungodly,  and  sinful  sectarian  strife.  But 
the  most  uselessly  foolish  thing  of  all  is  that  Chris- 
tians have  imagined  that  these  three  reasons  why  the 
Creed  of  Christendom  has  been  believed  are  antagonis- 
tically and  fundamentally  different.  They  are  not. 
They  are  unified  in  one  higher  and  all-inclusive  reason. 

ST.  Peter's  confession  of  faith 

When  St.  Peter's  confession  of  faith  in  Christ  was 
made,  it  is  most  significant  and  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance for  us  to  remember  that  Jesus  considered  it 
of  enough  importance  to  the  well-being  of  rehgion 
among  men,  to  tell  St.  Peter  why  he  believed  in  the 
Christian  religion,  and  in  so  doing  uncovered  for  him 
the  cause,  source,  and  foundation  of  his  faith.  All 
through  the  ages  His  doing  so  has  been  more  than 
justified,  and  never  more  so  than  at  the  present  time. 
Jesus  did  this,  not  only  that  Peter  might  know  the 
foundation  of  his  personal  faith  in  Him,  but  also,  I 


SOURCE    OF   AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION    221 

believe,  in  order  that  we  in  later  ages,  in  the  midst 
of  these  clamorous  confusion  of  tongues,  might  have 
uncovered  for  us  the  basal  rock  of  faith  in  God,  in  all 
men  and  in  all  ages. 

Jesus  did  not  tell  St.  Peter  that  his  confession  of 
faith  was  based  upon  the  prophets,  who  ages  before 
had  told  of  His  coming,  and  given  the  minutiae  of  his 
birth,  person,  and  death.  Jesus  told  St.  Peter  that 
his  faith  was  not  based  upon  the  inspired  prophets  of 
the  past,  however  much  inspired  they  were.  Jesus 
also  told  St.  Peter  that  his  faith  was  not  based  upon 
the  highest  living  human-inspired  teaching  voice  of 
the  age  —  though  John  had  borne  testimony  to  Christ 
in  no  uncertain  voice. 

Jesus  said :  Peter,  be  it  known  unto  you,  and  unto 
all  men  henceforth  and  forever,  that  your  salvation 
does  not  depend  upon  the  writing  of  books,  however 
infallible,  nor  upon  the  authority  which  comes  from 
the  unanimous  voice  of  bodies  of  men,  however  much 
inspired;  but  the  highest  God  in  the  universe,  my 
Father  and  your  Father,  speaks  to  you  personally  — 
heart  to  heart,  mind  to  mind,  spirit  to  spirit,  and  I 
over  against  I  —  revealing  that  I  am  in  you  and  you 
in  me,  and  that  I  am  your  Hfe  hid  in  God. 

Of  me  the  prophets  have  spoken,  of  me  the  Apostles 
will  bear  witness,  because  the  same  Spirit  which  now 
speaks  in  you,  revealing  to  you  that  I  am  the  Son  of 
the  living  God  and  you  are  a  son  of  the  living  God, 
is  the  same  Spirit  which  spake  in  the  past  and  speaks 
in  the  present,  individually  and  collectively  in  the 
voice  of  the  redeemed.  And  you  understand  that 
Spirit  which  spake  in  the  past,  and  speaks  in  the  col- 


222  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

lective  voice  of  the  present,  because  the  same  Spirit 
speaks  in  you. 

By  the  same  Spirit  the  prophets  spake;  by  the 
same  Spirit  Jesus,  the  Son  of  the  Hving  God,  was 
born;  by  the  same  Spirit  every  Christian  is  born. 
So  the  Spirit  is  one  and  the  same,  speaking  in  the 
past,  present,  and  future,  individually  and  collectively, 
in  mankind. 

The  people  who  base  their  faith  in  religion  on  the 
Bible  trust  the  utterance  of  the  Spirit  in  the  past; 
those  who  base  their  faith  upon  the  collective  voice 
of  the  Church  trust  the  utterance  of  the  Spirit  in 
others  now  living;  but  neither  you  nor  I  can  under- 
stand the  Spirit  which  speaks  in  the  Bible  and  in  the 
Church,  until  it  speaks  in  us.  So  in  this  way,  and  in 
this  way  alone,  can  we  have  the  witness  of  the  Spirit 
of  truth  individually  and  collectively  in  the  past  and 
present  and  future  —  always;  so  that  every  man 
hears  in  the  tongue  in  which  he  is  born  the  same 
Spirit  uttering  the  wonderful  Word  of  God. 

I  am  never  sure  that  I  hear  the  voice  of  the  Spirit 
until  I  test  His  utterance  in  my  own  personality  by 
His  utterance  in  the  whole  body  of  the  faithful  in  the 
past  and  in  the  present  —  in  other  words,  the  Bible 
and  the  Church.  Then  we  are  as  near  infallibility  as 
we  can  get. 

The  trouble  with  us  who  trust  the  inner  light  ex- 
clusively is  that  we  do  not  correct  the  refraction 
of  His  rays  in  our  own  personality  by  His  witness 
in  humanity  collectively  in  the  past  and  in  the 
present. 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION     223 

RELIGION,   CHURCH,   AND  BIBLE 

At  this  point  we  can  ask  in  the  proper  spirit,  and 
without  fear  of  being  misunderstood,  what  is  the  rela- 
tion between  Religion,  the  Church,  and  the  Bible? 
Which  came  first  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact  both  are  based  upon  the  same 
Spirit  as  He  has  uttered  Himself  in  the  past  and  in 
the  present.  Which  came  first?  The  United  States 
or  the  history  of  the  United  States?  Which  came 
first,  the  song,  or  the  love  which  inspired  it?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  first  came  the  Spirit  of  God  binding 
men  together  in  one  living  organism,  in  which  each 
individual  finds  his  own  and  the  common  Hfe  of  hu- 
manity hid  in  God.  Then  this  brotherhood  went  on 
growing  throughout  the  ages  and  expressed  its  deepest 
soul  experience  and  highest  spiritual  thirst  for  God 
in  that  matchless  literature  and  God-inspired  Book 
we  call  the  Bible,  which  fimds  its  glorious  consumma- 
tion in  making  God  and  man  one  in  Christ- Jesus  our 
Lord. 

So  we  find  that  the  Bible  is  last  and  religion  is  first 
in  order  of  time,  and  that  the  Bible  is  founded  upon 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  the  Church  upon 
religion;  that  is,  upon  God  speaking  in  our  souls, 
individually  and  collectively,  in  the  past  and  in  the 
present.  If  this  is  not  so,  it  would  be  impossible  for 
you  or  for  me  to  ever  know  that  the  Bible  is  inspired, 
or  that  the  Church  teaches  the  truth  of  God. 

The  historical  order  of  Religion,  the  Church,  and 
the  Bible  is  as  follows  :  In  order  to  get  the  connection 
we  will  go  no  further  back  than  the  time  of  Abra- 


224  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

ham,  from  whose  time  till  the  time  of  Moses  we  will 
estimate  to  be  about  four  hundred  years,  during  which 
time  not  a  word  of  the  Old  Testament  perhaps  was 
written.  Moses  is  commonly  accepted  as  the  man 
who  formulated  the  fundamentals  of  the  Jewish  the- 
ology known  as  the  Mosaic  Dispensation.  He  may 
have  written  parts  of  some  of  the  books  in  the  Old 
Testament,  but  these  books  continued  to  be  written 
for  a  thousand  years,  completed  probably  about  150 
years  before  the  birth  of  Jesus. 

Neither  is  the  Christian  religion  founded  upon  the 
New  Testament.  Probably  the  first  book  in  the  New 
Testament  to  be  written  is  the  Epistle  of  St.  James 
about  50  A.D.  Many  of  the  first  Christians  died  before 
a  single  line  of  the  New  Testament  was  written.  The 
last  book  in  the  New  Testament  was  written  prob- 
ably about  100  A.D.  By  this  time  three  generations 
of  Christians  had  lived.  But  it  was  not  until  325  a.d. 
that  the  Church  collected  these  writings,  decided 
which  were  inspired,  collected  them  into  the  Canon 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  distributed  them  among 
the  Church. 

Do  you  now  understand  why  it  is  an  impossibility 
for  the  Christian  religion  to  be  founded  upon  a  book, 
however  much  that  book  may  be  inspired,  and  con- 
tains the  history  and  statements  of  the  facts  of  re- 
ligion ?  And  why  the  Church  refuses  to  require  any 
one  to  say  that  he  beheves  the  Apostles'  Creed  upon 
the  authority  of  the  Bible?  Because  the  Christian 
faith  is  older  than  the  New  Testament.  Because  the 
Christian  faith  built  the  Church  and  wrote  the  New 
Testament. 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION     225 

The  greatest  mistake  that  our  Evangelical  Churches 
ever  made  is  to  teach  the  people  that  the  basis  of  the 
Christian  religion  is  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  the 
authoritative  text-book  of  the  Christian  religion,  but 
religion  is  no  more  founded  upon  it  than  mathematics 
is  founded  upon  Sanford's  Arithmetic. 

The  mistake  of  the  Roman  Communion  is  that  they 
teach  we  must  accept  religion  upon  the  authority 
alone  of  an  infallible  Church  and  Pope. 

The  souls  of  men  will  never  have  rest,  and  ought 
not  to  have  rest,  until  they  learn  that  the  eternal 
basis  of  religion  is  on  a  firmer  foundation  than  either 
the  Bible  or  the  Church,  whose  proper  function  is  to 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion. 
The  basis  of  the  Christian  religion  is  in  the  living 
God,  who  to-day  lives  in  the  souls  of  men  and  in- 
spires them  as  truly  as  He  ever  did. 

The  Church,  the  Bible,  and  Reason,  all  have  their 
place  and  necessary  function  in  religion;  but  their 
function  is  not  properly  stated  by  saying  that  religion 
is  founded  upon  any  of  them.  Guides,  interpreters, 
and  witnesses  they  are.  All  of  them  invaluable  wit- 
nesses to  the  faith.  The  Church  is  the  living  witness 
to  the  truth  of  religion  and  the  facts  upon  which  it  is 
founded.  The  Bible  is  the  authoritative  witness  of 
the  facts  which  led  the  first  people  to  become  Chris- 
tians. 

I  believe  the  Creed  of  Christendom  more  strongly 
because  it  is  found  in  the  Bible.  I  believe  it  more 
strongly  still  because  it  has  been  taught  in  the 
Church  from  the  beginning.  But  I  believe  it  most 
strongly  because  it  harmonizes  and  binds  into  one 

Q 


226  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

organic  unity  all  the  truth  in  the  universe  of  God 
that  mankind  knows  anything  about. 

We  have  come  to  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  world 
when  nothing  but  realities  will  be  tolerated.  Only 
those  things  can  be  accepted  as  sacred  which  in 
themselves  awake  the  sense  of  reverence.  Only  those 
things  are  inspired  which  have  the  power  of  inspiring. 
There  need  be  no  fear  to  submit  the  Christian  religion, 
the  Christian  people,  and  the  Christian  Scriptures  to 
this  test.  They  have  won  their  way  into  the  world, 
and  will  continue  to  win  their  way  in  the  world,  upon 
their  intrinsic  power  to  inspire  the  world.  They  will 
all  live  because  God  continually  bears  witness  that 
in  them  speaks  "the  still  small  voice,"  at  the  sound 
of  which  every  true  prophet  and  man  of  God  removes 
his  dusty  sandals  from  off  his  feet,  covers  his  face,  and 
bows  his  head  in  adoration  to  the  most  high  God. 


XVIII 

COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS 

"Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven : 
Hallowed  be  Thy  name, 
Thy  kingdom  come, 
Thy  will  be  done. 
As  in  heaven,  so  on  earth." 

Whom  does  this  leave  out?  Are  we  not  praying 
for  the  whole  living  creation  to  come  into  saving 
knowledge,  love,  and  communion  with  God,  through 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord?  I  have  said  the  living  crea- 
tion of  God,  for  with  Him  there  are  no  dead  —  only 
a  transition  from  one  form  of  life  to  another  form  of 
life.  And  when  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  taught  us  to 
pray :  — 

"Forgive  us  our  trespasses 
As  we  forgive  those  who  trespass  against  us, 
And  lead  us  not  into  temptation. 
But  deliver  us  from  evil," 

whom  does  the  us  include?  Certainly  all  the  sin- 
ning souls  in  the  universe  who  have  sinned  and  need 
forgiveness,  does  it  not? 

It  does  seem  that,  of  all  the  Articles  of  the  Chris- 
tian Faith,  as  contained  in  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
"Communion  of  Saints"  would  find  the  easiest  and 
most  universal  acceptance  among  all  who  believe  in 
the  efficiency  and  power  of  prayer  and  that  the  death 

227 


228  THE  ^CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

of  the  flesh-body  neither  annihilates  the  soul  nor 
changes  its  moral  or  spiritual  nature.  Yet  people  do 
have  difliculty  with  this  most  necessary,  comforting, 
and  helpful  dogma  of  the  Christian  Faith.  When  we 
come  to  analyze,  however,  the  difficulties  which  are 
supposed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  believing  this  Article 
of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  we  shall  here,  as  elsewhere, 
find  that  the  difficulties  are  caused  by  making  several 
false  assumptions,  which,  when  removed,  the  difficul- 
ties at  once  disappear. 

The  difficulty  which  people  have  in  believing  the 
Christian  Religion,  in  whole  or  in  part,  that  which 
leads  them  to  reject  the  Christian  Religion,  if  indeed 
they  ever  do  reject  it,  when  once  they  have  come  to 
really  understand  it,  at  last  comes  from  two  causes: 
the  low  estate  of  our  spiritual  nature,  and  the  lazi- 
ness of  our  intellectual  nature;  for  all  men  love  to 
sin,  and  few  to  think.  From  these  two  sources  come 
ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  objections  to  the  Chris- 
tian Religion.  Unless  I  am  mistaken,  it  will  clearly 
be  seen  that  the  objections  to  the  Christian  Religion 
come  from  the  two  sources  which  I  have  mentioned, 
as  soon  as  we  state  in  the  very  simplest  outlines  the 
demands  which  the  Christian  Religion  makes  upon  us. 

(i)  The  Christian  Religion  presents  to  the  world  in 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  the  highest  ideal 
of  holiness  and  righteousness  that  we  can  conceive,  or 
even  dream  of,  in  moments  of  divinest  inspiration. 
But  Christianity  presents  religion  to  the  world,  not 
only  as  an  ideal,  but  as  an  ideal  realized  and  incar- 
nate as  Jesus,  God's  idea  of  man  as  so  perfect  that  no 
fault  can  be  found  in  Him  at  all. 


COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS  229 

(2)  Out  of  the  personality  of  Jesus  grows  the 
Church's  definition  of  salvation,  which  is  no  other 
and  none  less  than  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  so  that  no 
man  is  saved  until  the  fulness  of  Christ- Jesus  is 
wrought  out  in  him.  And  right  here,  if  we  make  one 
or  two  false  assumptions,  it  becomes  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world  to  preach  Jesus  Christ,  so  that,  instead 
of  being  the  hope  of  the  world.  He  becomes  the  despair 
of  the  world,  unless  we  lower,  debase,  and  vitiate 
what  the  New  Testament  means  by  salvation. 

(3)  For  when  the  perfect  man  Jesus  is  presented  to 
us  as  our  salvation,  our  weak  undeveloped  spiritual 
nature  is  very  apt  to  turn  skeptic  and  say  —  this  is 
too  high  for  me.  It  is  useless  for  me  to  attempt  to 
scale  these  dizzy  heights.  I  can  worship  and  adore 
from  afar,  but  attain  unto  this  never.  I  can  never 
become  such  a  man  as  Jesus  is. 

(4)  This  protest  of  our  weak  spiritual  nature  has 
been  so  powerfully  urged  by  the  world,  and  has  been 
so  profoundly  felt  by  the  Church,  that  the  Church 
has  compromised  with  the  weakness  of  our  spiritual 
nature  and  the  laziness  of  our  intellectual  nature, 
and,  instead  of  preaching  salvation  as  Jesus  taught 
it,  it  has,  by  its  substitutionary  theory  of  the  atone- 
ment, made  salvation  the  easiest  and  cheapest  thing 
in  the  world  —  so  cheap,  easy,  and  worthless  that 
many  would  not  have  it  as  a  free  gift.^  This  false 
theology  of  the  substitutionary  theory  of  the  atone- 

^  For  the  distinction  between  the  "substitutionary  theory"  of 
the  atonement  and  the  "vicarious  theory"  of  the  atonement,  see 
Vol.  II,  "Kinship  of  God  and  Man."  The  vicarious  theory  of  the 
atonement  contains  all  the  truth  of  the  substitutionary  theory  minus 
all  of  its  impossibiUties. 


230  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

ment  has  invaded  every  department  of  Christian 
theology  and  so  vitiated  it  that  it  has  done  more 
than  anything  else  to  obscure  the  real  purpose  of 
Christianity,  which,  in  the  mind  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  and  His  Apostles,  is  the  formation  of  the 
spirit  of  Christ  in  us  unto  the  fulness  of  the  stature 
of  Jesus,  which  ''fulness  of  His  stature"  gives  us  His 
control  over  the  powers  of  nature  and  human  nature. 
''The  works  that  He  does,  the  same  works  shall  we 
do"  is  the  Gospel  Jesus  and  His  Apostles  preached. 

Men  have  said.  Oh !  no !  no !  no !  Salvation 
cannot  mean  this !  For  I  expect  to  attain  salvation, 
and  I  can  never  attain  this  !  I  am  a  saved  man  now. 
Several  years  ago,  at  a  certain  place,  and  in  a  certain 
minute  upon  which  I  can  place  my  finger,  I  was  con- 
verted and  got  rehgion.  Since  I  underwent  that  expe- 
rience, all  I  have  to  do  to  get  into  heaven  is  to  lie  down 
and  die  a  flesh-death.     I  am  ready  to  go  at  any  time. 

I  ask  in  astonishment,  all  you  have  to  do  to  get  into 
heaven  is  to  die  a  flesh-death  ?  Then  don't  you  think 
that  the  Lord  is  very  selfish  in  keeping  you  here  on 
the  earth  out  of  so  much  enjoyment,  when  all  you  have 
to  do  is  to  die  a  flesh-death  in  order  to  get  into  such  a 
heaven  of  happiness?  This  sounds  very  much  like 
the  Persian  poet,  Omar  Khayyam,  when  he  says :  — 

"  Why  if  the  soul  can  fling  the  dust  aside, 
And,  naked,  upon  the  air  of  heaven  ride, 
Were't  not  a  shame  —  were't  not  a  shame 
In  this  clay  carcase  crippled  to  abide." 

The  fundamental  mistake  which  many  Christians 
have  made  is  that  Salvation  is  something  begun  and 
completed  in  a  few  moments  of  time,  and  not  an  age- 


COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS  231 

long  process  of  growth  into  the  fulness  of  the  Stature 
of  Christ-Jesus,  begun  on  earth  in  our  baptismal 
regeneration,  progressively  developed  in  our  life  after 
death,  and  completed  in  our  resurrection  —  and  not  in 
the  mere  act  of  flesh-death. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  the  Christians  that  we  know 
anything  about  on  the  earth  are  more  or  less  sinful, 
but  it  is  impossible  even  for  us  to  conceive  of  any  one 
being  in  heaven  until  he  is  perfectly  pure  and  sinless. 
How  then  is  this  sin-stained  nature  of  ours  to  be 
bleached  whiter  than  snow  ? 

Ah,  that  is  simple  enough,  say  the  preachers  of  a 
type  of  Christianity  the  keystone  of  whose  theology  is 
the  substitutionary  theory  of  the  atonement.  In  the 
act  of  flesh-death  God  makes  us  perfect  in  holiness 
if,  just  before  we  die  this  flesh-death,  we  believe  that 
Jesus  died  as  a  substitute  for  the  sins  of  the  world, 
and  we  accept  him  as  our  Saviour  in  this  substitution- 
ary sense.  If  we  believe  this  just  before  we  die  a 
flesh-death,  then  flesh-death  makes  us  perfect  in 
holiness ;  if  we  do  not  believe  this  just  before  we  die, 
then  flesh-death  makes  us  perfect  in  sin  —  at  least, 
makes  it  impossible  that  we  shall  ever  live  any  other 
life  than  a  sinful  life.  In  other  words,  flesh-death 
unalterably  makes  us  either  everlasting  Saints  or 
everlasting  Sinners. 

You  are  perfectly  well  aware  that  all  this  has  been 
preached  to  the  world  as  Christianity,  claiming  that  it 
is  derived  from  the  Bible,  and  it  alone  represents  the 
true  and  only  teaching  of  the  Bible,  and  because  people 
have  rejected  all  this  they  have  been  called  skeptics, 
unbehevers,  and  what  not.     It  has  driven  thousands 


232  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

out  of  the  Church,  and  made  a  still  larger  number 
lose  all  interest  in  Christianity. 

Let  me  now  show  you,  as  quickly  as  possible,  how 
these  false  assumptions  have  created  these  disastrous 
results.  Also  let  me  show  you  how  any  Clergyman  of 
the  Church,  who  identifies  Christianity  with  this 
system  of  theology,  will  fail  of  his  largest  usefulness 
in  preaching  the  Gospel  of  Christ  to  this  generation 
of  men  and  women. 

The  first  false  assumption  is  made  by  putting  Jesus 
upon  an  unattainable  pinnacle  and  making  him  the 
incarnation  of  God  such  as  we  can  never  become,  while 
the  New  Testament  teaches  that  he  was  made  in  all 
points  like  us  sin  excepted,  that  we  might  be  made  in 
all  points  like  him  without  any  exception.  So  the 
Christian  Church  holds  up  this  sinless  Jesus  as  our 
Salvation,  who  is  the  source  of  our  inspiration  and 
hope  because  He  imparts  His  life  to  us,  which  enables 
us  to  attain  the  same  high  estate  that  He  has  attained. 
He  has  attained  what  others  had  been  struggling 
towards  through  all  the  ages  and  had  failed  to  obtain ; 
but  since  the  introduction  of  His  lifegiving  power 
incarnate  in  his  Church  in  the  world,  we  can  stretch 
forth  weak  hands,  grimed  with  the  dust  and  sin  of  the 
earth,  and,  by  the  use  of  the  lifegiving  power  of  God 
incarnate  in  him  —  if  sufficient  time  is  given  us  — 
become  as  sinless  as  He  is  sinless.  Because  Jesus  has 
pledged  Himself  to  lift  us  as  high  into  Heaven  as 
He  has  ascended,  and  to  make  us  as  much  the  incarna- 
tion of  God  as  He  is  the  incarnation  of  God  —  because 
he  is  all  this  to  us  He  is  the  source  of  our  inspiration 
and  hope ;  and,  if  he  is  not  all  this  to  us,  He  becomes 


COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS  233 

the  source  of  our  despair,  and  to  talk  about  our  being 
as  perfect  as  our  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect,  and  to 
urge  us  to  love  God  with  all  our  hearts,  minds,  souls, 
and  bodies,  and  our  neighbors  as  ourselves,  is  the  crudest 
and  falsest  sentimentality  ever  preached  to  humanity. 

Again  the  position  of  God  incarnate  in  the  History 
of  the  World  is  a  source  of  inspiration  and  hope 
to  us.  He  came  incarnate  at  a  remarkably  late 
date  in  the  History  of  the  World  —  only  some  1900 
years  ago  —  after  untold  centuries  of  human  evolu- 
tion, and  as  the  consummation  of  all  human  evolution, 
and  as  the  maker  of  all  human  evolution.  This,  if 
nothing  else,  ought  to  teach  us  that  we  can  attain  the 
fulness  of  his  stature  only  by  travelHng  the  same  toil- 
some steeps  of  the  same  strait  and  narrow  path 
which  Jesus  has  consecrated  and  forever  made  holy 
by  his  footsteps. 

And  when  does  the  New  Testament  say  that  we  shall 
attain  unto  the  fulness  of  Jesus  ?  At  our  flesh-death  ? 
You  cannot  find  this  in  the  New  Testament,  which 
makes  the  consummation  of  our  Salvation  nothing  less 
than  attaining  such  a  resurrection  as  Jesus  showed  to 
his  Disciples  during  the  forty  days  between  His 
resurrection  and  ascension. 

The  other  false  assumption  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  rejection  that  nothing  less  than  the  fulness  of 
stature  of  Jesus  Christ  wrought  out  in  us  is  the  Gospel 
of  Christianity,  is  that  there  is  no  progressive  growth 
in  goodness  and  in  spirituaHty  after  our  flesh-death, 
but  that  these  few  days  and  nights  of  feverish  toil  and 
grime  on  this  little  ball  of  dirt  fix  the  limits  of  our 
growth  and  decide  our  eternal  destiny. 


234  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

With  all  these  false  assumptions  removed,  and  in 
the  place  of  them  the  New  Testament  teaching,  that 
there  is  progressive  growth  in  goodness  possible  for 
all  in  our  life  after  death,  hope  and  encouragement  are 
given  to  the  feeblest  beginnings  of  our  spiritual  nature, 
without  lowering  the  standards  of  Christianity  and 
salvation  to  the  level  of  the  substitutionary  theory  of 
the  atonement,  which  our  undeveloped  and  lazy 
moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  nature  cries  out  for. 

For  if  we  tell  men  that  only  those  who  have  attained 
sinlessness,  by  overcoming  all  evil,  is  the  kind  of  men 
God  wishes  us  to  be  and  the  kind  of  a  man  every  one 
wishes  himself  to  be,  and  that  this  perfection  is  at- 
tained in  a  few  moments  of  time  by  believing  that 
Jesus  was  Crucified  as  a  substitute  for  us,  and  all  that 
we  have  to  do  after  we  believe  this  to  get  into  His 
sinless  heaven  is  to  lie  down  and  die,  people  can  no 
longer  believe  this;  because  their  own  experience 
tells  them  that  it  is  not  true,  and  a  careful  study  of 
the  New  Testament  corroborates  this  experience. 

Because  people  assume  so  many  things  to  be  true 
which  are  not  true,  and  then  identify  this  false  theol- 
ogy with  Christianity,  the  Christian  Religion  is  said 
to  be  so  mysterious. 

The  Christian  Religion  is  easily  understood  when 
rightly  approached,  but  if  we  start  with  a  whole  lot 
of  false  assumptions,  of  course,  we  will  land  either  in 
mystery  or  in  absurdity.  It  is  like  making  a  mistake 
in  the  beginning  of  a  problem  in  Arithmetic.  The 
error  is  going  all  the  way  through  the  example  and 
makes  the  answer  inevitably  wrong.  When  the  pupil 
finds  that  his  answer  does  not  correspond  with  that 


COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS  235 

of  the  book,  he  ought  not  to  cry  out  mystery,  but  say, 
I  have  made  a  mistake  somewhere,  and  then  hunt 
for  the  mistake  until  he  finds  it.  What  most  people 
mean  when  they  say  that  the  Christian  Religion  is  hard 
to  understand,  at  least  I  have  found  it  so  in  my  own 
experience  and  in  that  of  others  with  whom  I  have 
talked,  turns  out  to  be  that  we  have  assumed  some- 
thing to  be  true  which  is  false;  for  the  Christian 
Religion  in  itself  is  the  most  essentially  reasonable 
thing  in  the  universe. 

If  people  then  find  any  difficulty  with  that  article 
of  the  Creed  which  says,  *'I  believe  in  the  Communion 
of  Saints,"  we  shall  find  that  the  trouble  arises  in 
most  instances  by  making  some  false  assumption. 
In  fact  I  have  found  that  I  cannot  talk  intelligently 
with  people  about  the  great  fundamentals  of  Chris- 
tianity without  defining  the  meaning  of  the  words  I 
am  using,  because  some  false  assumptions  are  almost 
sure  to  be  lurking  somewhere  in  the  ^background  of 
thought,  and  false  meanings  are  almost  sure  to  be 
attached  to  words  which  have  been  used  for  centuries 
in  the  Christian  Church.  When  I  use  the  word  "  bap- 
tism," for  instance,  I  find  that  people  who  have  grown 
up  in  the  midst  of  an  evangelical  environment,  in 
which  the  whole  meaning  and  significance  of  the 
Church's  Sacramental  Teaching  have  been  allowed 
to  fade  away  and  become  clean  washed  out,  mean  by 
baptism  "wetting  one  with  water  in  the  name  of  the 
trinity,"  while  the  Church  means  by  baptism  "a 
death  unto  sin  and  a  new  birth  unto  righteousness." 
When  the  Church  uses  the  word  "  Salvation  "  it  means 
"that  process  of  ingrafting  the  spirit  of  Christ  in  us 


236  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

by  baptism  and  our  growth  through  that  spirit  into 
the  fulness  of  the  stature  of  Jesus/'  while  many  of 
our  Christian  brethren  mean  by  Salvation  "an  emo- 
tional experience  through  which  they  pass  in  a  few 
moments  of  time/'  and  not  the  incarnation  and  self- 
conscious  possession  of  the  sinless  holiness  and  power 
of  Jesus. 

When  we  talk  about  "Communion  of  Saints/'  you 
would  be  surprised  to  find  how  many  people  think  that 
we  mean  some  sort  of  "mediumship  "  such  as  the  spirit- 
ualists give  exhibitions  of  from  time  to  time.  Of  course 
it  is  absurd,  but  not  more  so  than  hundreds  of  other 
things  which  go  unchallenged  every  day. 

What  then  does  "Communion  of  Saints"  mean? 
Anything  new  or  startling,  or  something  very  easily 
understood  and  very  familiar  ?  It  is  the  latter.  In 
the  Creed  as  soon  as  we  say  that  we  believe  in  the 
"Holy  Spirit,"  we  immediately  go  on  to  assert  what 
God  as  the  Holy  Spirit  does;  which  is,  first,  the 
Creation  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church ;  and,  secondly, 
the  Communion  of  Saints.  Let  us  see  the  relation 
between  them.  The  first  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost  was  the  creation  of  the  Christian 
Church  by  the  impartation  of  His  Spirit  to  the  dis- 
ciples in  the  upper  room.  "Birds  of  a  feather  flock 
together,"  because  they  partake  of,  and  share  in, 
the  same  spirit ;  so  the  very  first  fruit  and  evidence 
of  the  creation  of  the  Holy  CathoHc  Church  was  "Com- 
munion of  Saints."  The  very  essence  of  the  Christian 
Church  is  that  there  shall  first  be  saints,  and  then 
these  saints  shall  be  in  communion  with  one  another, 
as  St.  John  says:    "We  know  that  we  have  passed 


COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS  237 

from  death  to  life  because  we  love  the  brethren."  In 
the  New  Testament  a  saint  and  a  Christian  mean  the 
same  thing.  And  then,  a  little  later  on  in  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  we  find  that  this  Communion  of  Saints 
is  the  bond  which  held  Christians  together,  '' stead- 
fastly in  Apostles'  doctrine,  fellowship,  the  breaking 
of  bread,  and  in  the  prayers."  The  Communion  of 
Saints  is  such  a  vital  bond  holding  the  Christian  Church 
together,  that  when  this  bond  is  broken,  it  falls  into 
fragmentary  sects.  As  Baptism  makes  Christians, 
so  Communion  of  Saints  holds  them  together  after 
they  are  made  Christians. 

Not  only  is  "Communion  of  Saints"  the  bond  hold- 
ing Christians  on  earth  together,  but  it  holds  all 
Christians  together,  living  and  dead. 

There  are  saints  living  and  saints  dead,  and  both  are 
in  communion  with  us  in  many  ways.  We  all  believe 
that  such  a  saint  as  Isaiah  lived  thousands  of  years 
ago,  and  we  are  in  communion  with  him  whenever 
we  wish  to  be,  by  reading  his  writing  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. When  we  do  so,  we  are  in  as  direct  communion 
with  him  as  I  am  with  you  and  you  with  me  now. 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  saints,  as  well  as 
other  people,  have  communion  with  one  another. 
Through  the  medium  of  the  printed  page  we  have  one 
method  of  communion  with  the  spirits  of  the  mighty 
dead.  In  this  manner  we  are  in  communion  with 
Homer,  Virgil,  Caesar,  Shakespeare,  and  other  great 
spirits  who  have  gone  on  before.  Shut  off  this  kind 
of  communion,  and  you  and  I  would  be  shut  up  to  the 
pettiness  of  our  own  thoughts,  and  the  deeds  of  the 
world  wovdd  be  limited  to  the  paltry  transactions, 


238  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

gossip,  and  scandal  of  our  own  insignificant  neigh- 
borhood. 

But  not  only  do  the  departed  saints  communicate 
themselves  to  us  through  the  books  which  they  have 
left  to  us,  but  through  the  links  of  the  living  men  and 
women  stretching  back  through  the  past,  whom  they 
have  personally  influenced  while  in  the  flesh.  Our 
religion  comes  from  Judea,  our  art  and  culture  from 
Greece,  our  laws  and  government  from  Rome.  Plato, 
Shakespeare,  Caesar,  St.  Paul,  are  we  not  better  ac- 
quainted with  them,  and  do  they  not  influence  us 
more  than  the  man  across  the  street,  or  our  next-door 
neighbor  ?  Do  we  not  know  them  better,  and  are  they 
not  a  greater  power  in  our  lives,  than  the  people  we 
brush  on  the  street  ? 

When  a  great  or  a  good  man  is  born  into  the  world, 
he  does  not  live  unto  himself  nor  die  unto  himself. 
He  is  the  cause  of  the  rising  and  the  falling  of  many 
in  Israel.  He  is  a  power  let  down  from  Heaven  into 
the  earth  with  which  we  must  all  reckon.  Some  new 
and  diviner  quality  of  life  is  born  with  him  into  the 
world  which  he  is  to  communicate  to  others  as  they 
are  able  to  receive  it. 

And  the  greater  the  man  is  the  longer  it  takes  him  to 
communicate  himself  to  us.  His  generation  will  very 
likely,  according  to  the  age-long  custom,  stone  him, 
and  the  next  generation  build  his  monument.  But  if 
he  is  good  and  great,  the  race  will  not  let  him  die.  He 
will  live  on  in  the  world  with  an  ever  increasing  force 
and  power  until  he  as  permanently  and  as  fixedly 
takes  his  place  in  the  life  of  spiritual  humanity  as  the 
fixed  stars  shine  in  the  astronomical  heavens. 


COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS  239 

It  always  takes  death  to  reveal  the  magnitude  of 
the  truly  great  ones.  As  you  stand  at  the  foot  of 
Mt.  Blanc  you  are  not  aware  of  its  stupendous  size. 
Move  away  some  forty  or  fifty  miles,  then  turn  and 
look  back,  and  you  will  see  it  cleaving  the  sky  in  its 
stupendous  majesty.  So  the  great  ones  of  the  earth 
have  to  be  removed  from  the  earth  before  we  can  cor- 
rectly measure  their  magnitude.  They  have  to  be 
taken  away  before  we  realize  what  an  inspiration  and 
help  they  were  to  us  while  they  were  with  us  in  the 
flesh.  While  they  lived  in  the  flesh,  they  influenced 
the  few  with  whom  they  came  in  personal  contact. 
But,  if  after  their  death  we  find  that  they  were  truly 
great,  nothing  can  prevent  the  circle  of  their  power 
from  widening  until  it  becomes  national;  and  then, 
if  they  are  of  the  first  magnitude,  they  overleap  the 
bounds  of  their  nations,  and  become  not  only  national 
but  world  forces,  as  Plato,  Moses,  Homer,  and  Shake- 
speare. 

These  men  do  not  die  when  they  cast  off  the  flesh; 
they  then  only  truly  begin  to  live  and  communicate 
themselves  to  the  world.  Their  spirits  go  marching 
on.  Shakespeare  is  more  alive  to-day  than  he  ever 
was.  For  the  few  who  knew  and  loved  him  while  he 
was  in  the  flesh  there  are  millions  who  know  and  love 
him  to-day.  Shakespeare  —  why,  I  know  Shake- 
speare better  than  I  know  any  of  you  sitting  before 
me. 

Communion  of  Saints  there  always  has  been  since 
saints  have  been.  As  the  stars  in  the  heaven  communi- 
cate their  light  to  us  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  so  we 
walk  in  the  paths  of  Christianity  by  means  of  the  moral 


240  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

and  spiritual  light  which  the  saints  have  shed  all 
along  our  pathway  and  communicated  to  us. 

Strike  out  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and  we  would 
have  total  darkness ;  so  strike  out  one  by  one  the  great 
and  holy  ones  who  have  trod  the  earth,  and  we  would 
have  moral  and  spiritual  darkness. 

The  Mississippi  River  is  what  it  is  by  virtue  of  its 
tributaries.  The  vast  volume  of  water  which  flows  past 
New  Orleans  is  the  commingled  and  communicated 
waters  of  the  Missouri,  Ohio,  Red,  and  Arkansas  rivers, 
gathered  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  the  west,  the 
Alleghanies  on  the  East,  and  the  plains  and  valleys 
between.  Break  entirely  the  communion  of  these 
rivers,  and  where  the  lordly  Mississippi  now  flows 
would  be  a  dry  bed. 

So  if  it  were  possible  to  break  my  communion  and 
your  communion  with  the  saints,  we  would  be  moral 
zeros.  So  you  see  the  transcendent  importance  of  this 
article  of  the  Creed. 

It  is  said  that  there  is  a  chapel  somewhere  in  Scot- 
land at  which  an  old  and  beautiful  custom  once  pre- 
vailed. The  minister  and  the  members  of  the  congre- 
gation brought  candles  with  them  to  the  church. 
The  Minister  lights  his  candle  and  places  it  on  the  Altar, 
and  then  lights  the  candles  of  the  members  of  the  con- 
gregation from  the  candles  on  the  Altar  until  the  chapel 
is  brilHantly  lighted.  So  every  saint  —  and  every 
good  person  is  a  saint  —  is  a  light  sent  from  God  into 
this  world,  and  while  any  saint  by  himself  would  be  a 
feeble  light  shining  in  the  spiritual  darkness  of  the 
world,  when  they  all  combine  the  light  of  their  Christ- 
begotten  goodness,  the  world  of  humanity  is  made 


COMMUNION  OF  SAINTS  241 

brilliant  by  the  illumination  of  their  spiritual  light,  as 
the  stars  of  the  heaven  light  up  the  earth. 

Every  saint  in  the  world  is  a  fountain  of  goodness 
in  the  world  whose  fountain  does  not  cease  to  flow  in 
this  world  when  he  passes  into  the  unseen  world.  He 
and  his  influence  swell  the  fountain  of  goodness  in 
the  great  world's  life.  So  if  you  trace  back  the 
sources  of  the  world's  spiritual  life,  you  will  find  that  it 
took  its  rise  in  the  past  ages  in  the  saints  who  lived  long 
ago,  through  whose  communion  the  sainthood  of  to-day 
is  fed  and  kept  alive. 

I  have  shown  you  that  we  are  in  communion  with  the 
saints,  living  and  dead,  through  at  least  two  channels: 
the  written  records  and  deeds  which  they  have  left 
behind  them,  and  through  the  lives  of  living  persons 
whom  they  have  influenced  from  their  day  down  to  the 
present  time,  just  as  the  volume  of  water  which  flows 
past  New  Orleans  out  into  the  gulf  is  the  result  of  the 
mingling  and  communion  of  the  waters  emptied  into 
the  Mississippi;  so  in  my  life  and  in  your  life  there 
lives  something  of  the  lives  of  all  the  saints  who  have 
lived  in  the  world. 

So  far  you  have  gone  with  me,  and  now  I  would  like 
to  lead  you  still  farther  on  and  deeper  into  this  truth 
of  "the  Communion  of  Saints."  But  before  I  can  do 
so  we  must  stop  for  a  moment  and  come  to  some  agree- 
ment as  to  what  we  mean  by  the  word  "influence." 
Take,  for  instance,  the  man  Moses:  does  he  still  live  in 
the  world  or  his  influence  only  ?  I  reply  by  asking  you 
what  is  a  man's  influence  but  himself  communicated 
to  you  ?  There  you  are  and  here  I  am,  and  am  I  not 
in  communion  with  you  now  ?    And  what  is  my  com- 


242  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

munion  with  you  but  the  exertion  of  my  influence  upon 
you  through  outward  and  visible  and  inward  and  in- 
visible means  and  agencies  of  the  material  and  spiritual 
worlds  combined  in  unity  ?  Don't  you  see  that  here 
we  are  plimged  again  into  the  very  heart  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Sacramental  System  of  the  Church  ?  And 
how  it  tells  you,  and  it  alone  tells  you,  how  one  person 
is  in  communion  with  another  person  ?  How  that  the 
outward  and  visible  is  the  means  whereby  we  are  made 
partakers  of  the  inward  and  invisible  mind  and  spirit  of 
another  ? 

Take  the  poet  Tennyson,  for  instance.  When  you 
read  his  poems,  are  not  you  and  he  as  much  in  com- 
munion as  if  he  were  to  recite  them  to  you  ?  Perhaps 
more  so,  as  the  following  story  will  illustrate. 

You  are  familiar  with  that  poem  called  ''Sheridan's 
Ride."  This  poem  at  once  sprang  into  popularity, 
and  it  happened  to  be  written  and  first  read  as  follows, 
as  Mr.  Murdoch  told  me  when  I  met  him  many  years 
ago  in  Philadelphia. 

Mr.  Murdoch  was  giving  at  one  of  the  theatres  in 
Cincinnati  a  benefit  for  the  Union  Soldiers  and  Mr. 
Read  wrote  this  poem  for  Mr.  Murdoch  to  recite  at  this 
benefit  which  he  was  giving.  It  took  the  audience 
by  storm,  for  Mr.  Murdoch  was  one  of  the  most  fin- 
ished and  powerful  elocutionists  this  country  has  ever 
produced.  When  I  heard  him  read  the  Witch  Scene 
in  Macbeth,  I  saw  witches  then,  whether  there  are 
any  witches  or  not.  I  would  rather  hear  him  read 
Macbeth  than  see  any  troop  of  actors,  which  have  ever 
trod  the  stage,  act  it. 

But  to  return  to  my  story:  in  all  probability,  if  the 


COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS  243 

poet  Read  who  wrote  the  poem  had  read  it  to  that 
audience  instead  of  Mr.  Murdoch,  the  chances  are  that 
it  would  not  have  been  half  so  effective.  This  reminds 
me  of  a  similar  coincidence  in  the  Bible  —  Moses  and 
Aaron.  Moses  was  the  thinker  but  of  stammering 
lips,  while  Aaron  was  the  orator  but,  perhaps,  of  few 
ideas.  So  Moses  spoke  through  the  fluent  orator 
Aaron  and  influenced  the  people.  Don't  you  see 
that  our  influence  is  just  so  much  of  ourselves  as  we  can 
project  into  another  as  the  result  of  our  communion 
with  them  ?  One  can  do  this  best  by  spoken  words, 
another  by  written  words ;  others  not  by  words  at  all, 
but  by  the  brush  or  the  chisel;  but  whatever  method 
is  used  it  is  always  the  sacramental  method. 

Finally  take  pubHc  opinion,  that  force  which  mar- 
shals armies,  dethrones  kings,  and  keeps  a  fretful  realm 
in  awe;  what  is  it?  An  unseen  influence,  but  in  that 
unseen  influence  there  resides  the  spirit  of  the  nations 
with  might  and  power  transcending  all  the  combined 
armies  of  the  world.  Conscience;  what  is  it  but  an  in- 
fluence ?  Yet  in  that  still  small  voice  is  the  spirit  of 
God,  so  that,  in  the  supreme  crises  of  the  world,  the 
voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  God. 

Have  I  not  made  it  plain  to  you  that  a  person's 
influence  is  himself,  and  as  much  of  himself  as  he  can 
communicate  to  you?  The  question  now  takes  this 
form.  Do  those  whom  we  call  the  dead  continue  to  in- 
fluence us,  or  we  them,  after  they  pass  into  the  unseen 
world  ?  Well,  since  we  are  Hving  and  they  are  living, 
how  is  it  possible  for  them  not  to  influence  us,  and  for  us 
not  to  influence  them?  We  chiefly  think  so  because 
nine-tenths  of  the  communion  we  have  with  one  an- 


244  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

other  in  this  world  comes  through  the  medium  of  our 
gross  five  senses.  I  am  a  spirit  and  you  are  a  spirit, 
and  just  now  I  am  in  communion  with  you  and  you  are 
in  communion  with  me.  How  ?  Through  the  vibra- 
tion of  sound. 

Through  this  vibration  of  sound  my  spirit  communes 
with  yours.  Now,  of  course,  if  we  have  no  other  way 
of  communion  save  through  our  five  senses,  then  death 
entirely  sunders  our  communion,  and  not  only  sunders 
our  communion,  but  annihilates  us.  But  are  we  not 
spirit  as  well  as  matter  ?  Have  we  not  spiritual  facul- 
ties as  well  as  material  faculties,  and  are  we  not 
using  our  spiritual  faculties,  which  transcend  our 
material  faculties,  all  the  time  ?  Is  there  not  such  a 
thing  as  prayer  ? 

Do  we  not  pray  for  one  another?  Suppose  your 
child  was  in  Europe,  would  not  your  prayer  be  as  ef- 
fective for  him  as  if  he  were  in  the  next  room  ?  How 
do  you  know  that  death  removes  your  child  as  far 
away  from  you  as  Europe?  There  are  people  living 
to-day  in  flesh  and  who  have  the  power  of  communi- 
cating their  ideas  to  other  minds,  and  other  minds 
receiving  ideas  from  them,  without  using  their  five 
senses.  But  let  us  first  approach  this  in  another 
way. 

If  a  cannon  is  shot  anywhere  in  the  world,  the  con- 
cussion causes  every  particle  of  matter  in  the  world  to 
vibrate.  It  will  do  more  than  this.  It  will  communi- 
cate itself  to  every  particle  of  matter  in  the  universe. 
So  we  are  taught  and  so  we  believe.  Since  that  law 
holds  good  in  the  material  world,  why  does  it  not  hold 
good  in  the  spiritual  world  ?    Why  will  not  thought 


COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS  245 

communicate  itself  to  mind  as  vibration  of  matter  com- 
municates itself  to  matter,  both  acting  together,  even 
beyond  the  milky  way  ? 

You  are  familiar  with  wireless  telegraphy.  They 
will  erect  one  machine  here  and  a  thousand  miles  away 
they  will  erect  another  machine  like  it,  both  tuned  to  the 
same  pitch,  and  so  constructed  as  to  register  the  most 
delicate  vibrations,  with  no  medium  of  communion 
save  the  universal  ether.  Are  not  the  spirits  of  saints 
in  tune,  and  is  not  spirit  infinitely  more  delicate  than  a 
wireless  transmitter  and  receiver  ?  So  we  have  a  uni- 
versal material  unseen  medium  that  spirits  in  tune  can 
use  as  well  as  wireless  telegraphy  can  use,  and  is  the 
angel  wings  which  have  borne  the  influence  of  incarnate 
spirit  to  spirit  since  the  communion  of  saints  began. 

You  are  familiar  with  h3^notism  —  how  that  one 
person  can,  by  simply  willing  it,  put  another  person  to 
sleep  miles  away.  Are  not  these  things  well  known 
unto  all  men,  which,  whatever  use  we  may  choose  to 
make  of  them,  show  that  our  spiritual  faculties  tran- 
scend our  five  senses?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  man's 
spiritual  faculties,  ever  since  he  has  had  spiritual  facul- 
ties, have  always  transcended  his  five  senses;  and 
man  by  prayer,  ever  since  man  began  to  pray,  has 
been  in  communion  with  God's  spiritual  world  of  un- 
seen spirits,  and  they  with  him. 

Never  has  the  faith  of  the  Christian  Church  in  the 
effectiveness  of  prayer,  as  the  universal  means  of 
communion  of  spirit  with  spirit,  been  more  beautifully 
expressed  than  in  these  perfect  verses  of  the  poet 
Tennyson : 


246  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

"I  have  lived  my  life,  and  that  which  I  have  done 
May  He  within  Himself  make  pure ;  but  thou, 
If  thou  shouldst  never  see  my  face  again, 
Pray  for  my  soul ;  more  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of !     Wherefore,  let  thy  voice 
Rise  for  me  Uke  a  fountain  night  and  day. 
For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats 
That  nourish  a  bhnd  life  in  the  brain, 
If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer 
Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend  ? 
For  so  the  whole  round  world  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 


XIX 

WHAT  THE  PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  HAS  TO 
CONTRIBUTE  TO  THE  MAKING  OF  THE  CHURCH  UNI- 
VERSAL 

Nothing  so  stirs  the  emotions  of  the  human  heart, 
and  nerves  the  Christian  to  such  high  endeavors  of 
heroic  action,  as  the  great  cause  of  missions;  but  in 
just  what  its  greatness  consists  is  too  often  obscured 
and  forgotten,  so  that  it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  call 
ourselves  up  with  a  start  and  ask,  what  meanest  thou 
by  these  words  "  Missions  "  and  ''  Missionary  "  ?  For 
every  one  that  is  sent  is  not  necessarily  a  missionary. 
Therefore,  whatever  the  popular  meaning  of  the  word 
^'  missionary  "  may  mean,  the  real  missionary  is  one  who 
lifts  us  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  plane,  and,  by  doing  so, 
causes  us  to  make  progress.  The  word  "  missionary  " 
I  know  means  "one  sent,"  but  is  not  the  justification  of 
the  "one  sent"  in  that  he  brings  "out  of  his  treasures 
things  new  and  old,"  and  asks  us  to  supplement  the 
old  we  have  with  the  new  he  has,  because  the  new  he 
has  is  as  necessary  as  the  old  we  have  ?  Once  upon  a 
time  we  used  wooden  plows  until  some  man  invented  a 
steel  plow.  This  plow  he  brings  is  not  only  a  new  plow, 
but  it  is  better  and  more  effective  than  the  wooden 
plow,  and  by  displacing  wooden  plows  with  steel  plows 
the  world  makes  progress.    Such  a  man  is  a  missionary ; 

247 


248  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

and  it  is  alone  through  men  who  have  this  spirit  that 
progress  is  made  not  only  in  agriculture  but  in  every 
department  of  life.  This  is  why  missions  is  such  a  great 
subject,  and  the  missionary  is  of  supreme  worth,  be- 
cause through  this  type  of  man  comes  the  new  and 
better  to  displace  the  old  and  worse.  For  the  mission- 
ary is  no  missionary  unless  he  brings  something  better 
than  the  best  we  have.  This  is  so  self-evident  that  we 
freely  grant  it  when  we  contrast  the  Christian  religion 
with  all  others. 

Progress  and  improvement  is  the  watchword  all 
along  the  line  in  every  department  of  work  and  life. 
What  higher  motive  therefore  could  one  set  before 
himself,  and  what  richer  reward  could  one  propose  to 
himself,  than  to  take  a  plant  or  a  human  soul  and  im- 
prove its  environment  so  that  it  can  pursue  its  upward 
course  of  evolution  to  that  high  ideal  which  God  in- 
tends it  to  reach?  Is  not  this  the  motive  of  all 
Churches  for  home  missions,  and  is  it  not  a  sufficiently 
powerful  motive,  to  take  the  defective  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  many  instances  the  distorted  forms  of 
Christianity,  and  turn  them  into  the  same  sweet, 
natural,  and  wholesome  thing  God  intends  religion  to 
be? 

The  worth  of  a  man  or  institution  is  in  his  ideal; 
that  is,  what  he  stands  for  and  what  he  represents. 
To  understand,  therefore,  the  ideal  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  is  to  discover  whether  it  should  have 
home  missions  as  well  as  foreign  missions.  In  other 
words  to  understand  what  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  stands  for  in  this  land,  that  no  other  body 
of  Christians  does,  is  what  we  wish  to  know.     In 


PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH      249 

what  I  am  going  to  say  I  shall  simply  state  its  essence 
and  guiding  principle  through  its  whole  history, 
which  is  the  contribution  it  has  to  give  to  The  Church 
Universal. 

The  guiding  principle  and  essence  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  is  (catholicity)  indusiveness :  (i) 
in  conditions  of  Church  membership ;  (2)  in  interpre- 
tation of  the  Holy  Scripture ;   (3)  in  theology. 

INCLUSIVE  (catholic)  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP 

By  Inclusive  Church  membership  we  mean  that  the 
conditions  of  Church  membership  ought  to  be  such  as 
to  include  all,  and  exclude  none,  who  are  Christians. 
We  believe  that  nothing  should  be  made  necessary  for 
membership  in  the  Church  of  Christ  that  is  not  neces- 
sary to  make  one  a  Christian.  Ask  yourself  what  is  nec- 
essary for  one  to  do  and  believe  to  become  a  Christian. 
The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  makes  this  its  condi- 
tion of  Church  membership.  We  believe  that  to  be  a 
Christian,  and  what  one  must  do  and  believe  to  be  a 
member  of  the  Christian  Church,  is  one  and  the  same 
question. 

The  priceless  heritage  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  is  that  its  Creed  is  catholic;  that  is,  contains 
nothing  that  is  not  absolutely  necessary  for  the  making 
of  a  righteous  character.  When  people  make  other 
than  this  into  creeds,  then  creeds  come  into  contempt ; 
and  you  will  hear  people  saying,  and  rightly  saying, 
that  creeds  are  not  only  not  necessary  for  salvation, 
but  are  the  useless  impedimenta  of  Christendom. 
But  no  one,  when  he  understands  the  Creed  of  the 


250  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  can  point  to  a  single 
statement  in  it  and  say  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  his 
salvation.  The  guiding  star  of  the  Protestant  Episco- 
pal Church  has  been  to  make  its  conditions  of  Church 
membership  so  inclusive  that  it  will  exclude  no  man 
who  is  a  Christian ;  not  only  because  no  body  of  Chris- 
tians has  any  right  to  do  more  than  this,  for  more  than 
this  has  not  been  commanded,  but  also  because  more 
than  this  is  sectarian  and  sinful. 

That  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  limits  the 
conditions  of  membership  in  the  Church  to  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  conditions  of  salvation  is  seen  as 
soon  as  we  carefully  read  the  four  questions  which 
contain  the  conditions  of  membership  in  this  Church. 

1.  Dost  thou  renounce  the  Devil  and  all  his  works, 
the  vain  pomps  and  glory  of  the  world,  with  all  covet- 
ous desires  of  the  same,  and  the  sinful  desires  of  the 
flesh,  so  that  thou  wilt  not  follow  nor  be  led  by  them  ? 

Answer.  I  renounce  them  all ;  and,  by  God's  help, 
will  endeavor  not  to  follow  nor  be  led  by  them. 

2.  Dost  thou  believe  all  the  articles  of  the  Christian 
Faith,  as  contained  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  ? 

Answer.     I  do. 

3.  Wilt  thou  be  baptized  in  this  faith? 
Answer.     That  is  my  desire. 

4.  Wilt  thou  obediently  keep  God's  holy  will  and 
commandments,  and  walk  in  the  same  all  the  days 
of  thy  life  ? 

Answer.    I  will  by  God's  help. 

The  man  who  comes  with  this  simple  message,  as 
the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Gospel  which  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  preached,  is,  to  an  overwhelming  majority 


PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL   CHURCH      251 

of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  a  missionary  in 
every  sense  of  the  word.  What  he  brings  is  new  — 
for  they  have  never  heard  it  Hke  this  before.  All  over 
this  country  you  will  find  people  who  are  Christians, 
but  the  conditions  of  Church  membership  exclude  them. 
They  are  often  the  best  people  in  their  commimities, 
but  they  cannot  without  perjuring  their  souls  join  any 
body  of  Christians  who  have  made  other  than  the 
essentials  of  salvation  the  conditions  of  Church 
membership.  Here  is  the  first  great  contribution 
which  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  to  con- 
tribute to  the  making  of  the  Church  Universal. 

INCLUSIVE    (catholic)    INTERPRETATION  OF 
SCRIPTURE 

Not  only  does  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
stand  for  an  inclusive  Church  membership,  but,  neces- 
sarily growing  out  of  this  fimdamental  conception, 
it  also  stands  for  an  inclusive  interpretation  of  the 
Bible,  and  we  mean  by  this  that  every  man  has  the 
right  to  interpret  the  Bible  for  himself  without  for- 
feiting his  membership  in  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Occasionally  you  will  find  a  man  who  is  so  possessed 
with  the  sectarian  spirit  as  to  claim  that  he,  and  he 
only,  infallibly  interprets  the  Bible.  Then  he  will 
gather  around  him  his  followers  who  will  agree  with 
his  interpretation  and  say  that  none  other  can  be 
right.  The  next  step  is  to  organize  themselves  into 
a  society  and  make  that  man's  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  their  creed.  The  next  step  is  to  let  no  one  into 
this  society  who  does  not  believe  that  their  preacher 


252  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

or  priest  only  can  infallibly  interpret  the  Bible.  The 
last  step  is  to  withdraw  from  the  other  Christians  who 
cannot  accept  their  infallible  interpreter  at  his  own, 
and  their  own,  valuation,  and  say,  *' We  not  only  claim 
to  infallibly  interpret  the  Bible  for  ourselves  but  for 
everybody  else  in  the  world." 

What  must  be  the  inevitable  effect  upon  character 
trained  in  such  an  environment  ?  When  one  submits 
to  any  such  limitations,  he  must  either  surrender  his 
mental  integrity,  or  forever  bar  the  way  to  all  further 
possible  mental  and  spiritual  development  save  that 
of  the  sect  to  which  one  belongs.  Compare  a  soul 
brought  up  in  such  an  environment  with  one  trained 
and  nurtured  in  a  Church  inheriting  the  garnered 
wisdom  and  experience  of  all  the  past  and  present, 
with  her  face  still  towards  the  future  as  she  majesti- 
cally moves  onward  into  the  greater  and  still  greater 
light  of  eternal  truth,  so  absolutely  assured  of  her  posi- 
tion that  perfect  freedom  of  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture is  granted  to  all  her  members,  assuring  them  that 
their  private  interpretations  will  never  cause  them 
to  lose  membership  in  the  Church.  The  consequence 
of  this  has  been  that  for  hundreds  of  years  the  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Church  has  been  the  home  of  the 
greatest  scholars  in  the  world. 

INCLUSIVE  (catholic)  THEOLOGY 

Not  only  is  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  inclu- 
sive when  it  comes  to  Church  membership  and  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture,  but  also  when  it  comes  to 
theology.    In    a    sectarian    church,   membership    is 


PROTESTANT   EPISCOPAL   CHURCH       253 

limited  to  those  of  only  one  type  of  theology.  On 
the  other  hand  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  is 
committed  to  no  one  type  of  theology,  but  includes 
them  all. 

That  which  makes  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
worth  while,  and  inevitably  insures  its  future  useful- 
ness and  growth,  is  that  it  is  an  inclusive,  and  not  an 
exclusive,  Church.  The  purpose  of  the  Reformers 
was  to  make  the  Church  of  England  comprehensive 
enough  to  include  all  Christians  of  the  race  and  exclude 
none,  and  in  order  to  do  this  the  Church  has  never 
accepted  as  its  authorized  teaching  the  theology  of 
any  one  man,  nor  made  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
a  closed  thing,  any  more  than  the  scientists  have  made 
the  interpretation  of  nature  a  closed  thing. 

But  there  are  many  men  who  are  not  built  on  this 
large  pattern,  for  time  and  again  have  men  arisen  in 
the  Church  and  tried  to  make  their  interpretation  of 
the  Bible,  God,  and  life,  the  only  thing  allowed  in  the 
Church,  but  the  Church  has  always  said :  no  !  first 
show  us  that  you  are  infallible,  and  then  we  will  have 
no  theology  but  yours  !  The  result  has  always  been 
that  those  who  thought  they  were  infallible  left  the 
Church,  and  those  who  knew  they  were  not  infallible 
staid  in  the  Church,  and  let  other  men  exercise  the 
same  right  which  they  claimed  for  themselves. 

I  would  not,  and  could  not,  be  a  member  of  any  body 
of  Christians  who  permitted  only  one  type  of  theology, 
no  matter  how  true  I  thought  that  theology  to  be. 
Outside  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  I  am  most  in 
sympathy  with  that  body  of  Christians  called  the  Uni- 
versalists.    If  I  were  forced  to  cast  in  my  lot  with  any 


254  THE   CHURCH  UNIVERSAL 

one  sect  of  Christians,  it  would  be  with  the  Universal- 
ists ;  because  they  beheve,  as  I  do,  in  the  final  salva- 
tion of  all.  While  this  is  my  faith  on  that  disputed 
point,  and  while  I  could  not  be  a  member  of  any  church 
which  did  not  consider  me  as  orthodox  as  anybody 
else  who  did  not  believe  that,  I  do  not  claim  to  be 
infalUble,  and  if  I  did,  I  would  be  the  blindest  of  sec- 
tarians. Furthermore,  if  I  were  to  cast  in  my  lot 
with  that  noble  band  of  Christians  called  the  Univer- 
salis ts,  holding  as  I  do  the  Catholic  conception  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  I  would  mean  by  that  act  to  say  that 
no  man  can  be  a  Christian  without  being  a  Univer- 
salist,  which  is  not  true.  Furthermore,  no  body  of 
Christians  calling  itself  the  Church  of  Christ  has  the 
right  to  exclude  any  one  except  on  the  groimd  that  he 
is  not  a  Christian.  A  man  can  be  a  Christian  and  not 
get  fellowship  in  the  Universalist  Society,  and,  there- 
fore, while  I  beheve  in  the  final  salvation  of  all,  I 
could  never  be  a  member  of  the  Universalist  Society. 
It  is  too  narrow.  It  includes  only  one  type  of  men 
with  only  one  set  of  ideas,  while  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  includes  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men 
who  have  Christ  for  their  ideal  of  life.  Let  us  always 
bear  in  mind  that  if  the  Christian  faith  is  not  held  in 
its  due  proportions,  it  becomes  the  most  terrific  engine 
ever  known  for  terrorizing,  dwarfing,  and  damning  the 
human  soul.  But  the  proportions  of  the  Christian 
faith  as  held  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
neither  suppress,  destroy,  nor  terrorize  any  faculty 
of  the  human  soul,  but  stimulate  into  their  highest 
activity  the  most  harmonious  development  of  every 
power  and  faculty  of  body,  mind,  and  spirit. 


PROTESTANT  EPISCOPAL   CHURCH      255 

The  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  is  a  body  of 
Christians  truly  Catholic  because  it  beHeves  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  for  all  men  created  in  the  image 
of  God;  for  the  old  and  for  the  young,  for  the  poor 
and  for  the  rich,  for  the  wise  and  for  the  ignorant; 
that  the  door  of  the  Church  must  be  kept  as  wide  open 
as  Christ  left  it;  that  every  one  who  has  Christ  for 
his  ideal,  and  is  trying  to  realize  this  ideal,  is  acceptable 
to  God,  and  ought  to  be  gathered  into  His  one  fold; 
that  no  private  individual  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
is  necessary  for  salvation;  that  to  force  all  men  to 
accept  some  other  man's  interpretation  of  the  Bible, 
whoever  and  however  great  that  man  may  be,  is  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  dwarf  and  enslave  the  powers  and 
faculties  of  the  growing  human  soul ;  that  every  man 
has  the  right  to  interpret  the  Bible  for  himself,  resent- 
ing, as  an  insult  to  the  God  who  made  us,  the  dictation 
of  any  sect,  which  woiild  make  their  interpretation  of 
the  Bible  so  infallible  that,  if  you  do  not  agree  with 
them,  they  will  turn  you  out  of  their  societies ;  that 
character  rather  than  emotional  excitabihtyis  the  basis 
of  salvation,  and  that  emotion  is  of  no  avail  except  as 
one  of  the  necessary  factors  in  the  creation  of  Char- 
acter ;  that  salvation  is  the  unfolding  of  man's  trinity 
of  body,  mind,  and  spirit,  in  harmony  unto  perfec- 
tion ;  that  salvation  of  the  human  soul  is  so  vast  and 
sublime  a  thing  that,  although  it  is  begun  here  on  earth, 
it  is  completed  only  when  we  have  attained  the  fulness 
of  the  stature  of  Christ- Jesus  in  the  resurrection; 
that  sectarian  theology  is  a  thing  which  man  will 
forever  outgrow,  as  his  mind  and  spirit  go  on  grow- 
ing in  the  image  of  God;   that  the  rock  upon  which 


2s6  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

religion  is  founded  is  neither  the  Church  nor  the  Bible, 
but  the  incarnation  of  God  as  Christ- Jesus  our  Lord, 
and  through  Him  in  all  men  who  follow  in  his  foot- 
steps. 

This  is  the  essence  of  the  contribution  which  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  to  make  to  the 
Church  Universal.  And  until  all  bodies  of  Christians 
in  this  land  teach  these  things,  home  missions  by  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  are  as  necessary  as  for- 
eign missions.  For  the  mission  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  is  to  reunite  the  broken  fragments 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  America  into  a  compre- 
hensive unity,  in  which  no  essential  will  be  left  out, 
and  no  non-essential  will  be  imposed  as  a  bond  of 
tyranny  upon  the  growing  conscience  and  expanding 
soul  of  any  Christian,  as  a  condition  of  membership 
in  the  Universal  Church  of  Christ. 


XX 

CONFIRMATION  A  SACRAMENT 

Some  may  be  surprised  that  I  call  Confirmation  a 
sacrament  and  place  it  on  a  par  with  Baptism  and 
Holy  Communion.  Let  me  call  the  attention  of  such 
to  the  definition  of  a  sacrament,  as  defined  by  the 
Universal  Christian  Church:  (i)  an  outward  and 
visible  sign,  (2)  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace; 
(3)  through  the  outward  and  visible  sign  we  are  made 
partakers  of  the  inward  and  spiritual  grace. 

This  is  the  definition  of  a  sacrament  which  I  have 
used  throughout  this  book,  and  according  to  this 
definition,  Confirmation  is  as  truly  a  sacrament  as 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  because  it  has  the 
outward  and  visible  part  —  laying  on  of  hands ;  the 
inward  and  spiritual  gift  —  the  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit;  imparted  to  us  through  this  outward  and 
visible  sign.  No  one  can  possibly  doubt  this.  Let 
me  call  your  attention  to  its  universality  —  the  grace 
which  comes  through  the  clasp  of  a  friendly  hand. 
The  commonness  of  its  occurrence  dulls  us  to  its 
sacramental  significance ;  but  suppose  that  you  were 
a  stranger  in  a  large  city,  feeling  depressed  on  account 
of  your  loneKness,  and  an  intimate  friend  were  sud- 
denly to  meet  you  face  to  face  and  grasp  you  warmly 
by  the  hand,  would  not  the  grace  of  his  friendship, 

257 


258  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

imparted  to  you  by  the  clasp  of  his  hand,  drive  out 
the  spirit  of  your  loneliness  and  temporary  depression  ? 
In  like  manner  the  Holy  Spirit  imparts  to  us  a  spiritual 
blessing  through  the  Christian  hand  of  the  Church. 

I  am  perfectly  well  aware  that  the  definition  of  a 
sacrament  as  given  in  the  Catechism  contains  five 
parts : 

(i)  An  outward  and  visible  sign 

(2)  Of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given  unto  us ; 

(3)  Ordained  by  Christ  himself, 

(4)  As  a  means  whereby  we  receive  the  same, 

(5)  And  a  pledge  to  assure  us  thereof. 

I  have  not  asserted  anywhere  in  this  book  that 
Confirmation  has  the  third  part  of  the  definition  of  a 
sacrament  —  ordained  by  Christ  Himself  —  if  this 
expression  means  ordained  while  Jesus  was  in  the 
flesh,  before  His  crucifixion. 

And  yet  some,  perhaps,  may  claim  that  I  have  no 
right  to  use  the  word  "  sacrament "  in  this  sense.  They 
claim  that  ordained  by  Christ  himself  is  an  essential 
part  of  the  definition  of  a  sacrament.  To  such  I  reply, 
what  does  ordained  by  Christ  himself  mean?  Does 
not  St.  Paul  say  that  the  powers  that  be  are  ordained 
of  God,  and  that  all  things  are  created  through  Christ 
Jesus?  Before  answering  this  question,  however, 
let  us  ask  and  answer  two  or  three  other  questions. 
Does  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  teach  that 
there  are  only  two  sacraments?  Does  it  teach  that 
any  sacrament  is  absolutely  necessary  for  salvation  ? 
This  book  has  been  written  in  vain  if  any  and  every 
reader  cannot  answer  these  questions  for  himself. 
Let  us  once  more  go  over  these  questions. 


CONFIRMATION   A   SACRAMENT  259 

Question.  How  many  Sacraments  hath  Christ  or- 
dained in  His  Church  ? 

Answer.  Two  only,  as  generally  necessary  to  sal- 
vation; that  is  to  say,  Baptism  and  the  Supper  of 
the  Lord. 

Notice  that  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  does 
not  say  how  many  sacraments  there  are  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  but  teaches  that  there  are  two  only  as 
generally  necessary  to  salvation  —  Baptism  and  the 
Supper  of  the  Lord.  So  far  as  the  Church's  teaching 
is  concerned  there  may  be  a  million  sacraments ;  but 
in  this  question  the  Church  is  confining  herself  to  the 
definite  and  specific  object  of  defining  how  many 
sacraments  are  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  every- 
body. In  this  question  she  is  not  concerned  at  all 
with  whether  Orders  in  the  Church  or  marriage,  for 
instance,  are  sacraments  or  of  the  nature  of  a  sacrament 
or  sacramental  rites^  but  is  teaching  how  many  sacra- 
ments are  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  everybody. 
It  is  not  necessary  for  everybody  to  be  married  or  be 
a  Minister  in  order  to  be  saved.  If  so,  the  Church 
would  have  said  that  there  are  four  sacraments  gen- 
erally necessary  for  salvation. 

The  Church  teaches,  by  the  question  and  answer 
which  I  have  quoted,  not  that  there  are  only  two  sac- 
raments, but  that  two  sacraments  are  generally  nec- 
essary for  salvation;  and  by  the  use  of  the  word 
generally  J  that  these  sacraments  are  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  all  —  priest  or  layman,  married  or  un- 
married, man,  woman,  or  child  —  all,  everybody  with- 
out any  exception.  Of  course,  always  remembering 
that  the  words  "Baptism"  and  the  ''Supper  of  the 


26o  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

Lord"  are  here  used  as  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  has  defined  them,  and  not  as  some  other 
bodies  of  Christians  have  defined  them. 

The  question  following  the  one  which  I  have  quoted 
above  is:  ''What  meanest  thou  by  this  word  sacra- 
ment?" And  the  answer  is:  ''I  mean  an  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given 
unto  us  :  ordained  by  Christ  himself,  as  a  means  whereby 
we  receive  the  same,  and  a  pledge  to  assure  us  thereof." 

Two  expressions  are  used  in  this  answer  which  will 
repay  careful  examination :  a  means,  and  ordained  by 
Christ  himself.  By  saying  that  these  sacraments  are 
a  means  of  our  salvation,  the  Church  does  not  teach 
that  they  are  the  only  means;  for  this  would  teach 
that  those  who  die  without  the  sacrament  of  Baptism 
can  never  be  saved  —  which,  of  course,  the  Church  does 
not  teach.  We  know  that  Spirit,  water,  and  blood  — 
the  factors  used  in  the  sacrament  of  Baptism;  and 
never  forget  the  difference  between  baptism  and  the 
sacrament  of  baptism  —  by  their  combined  action 
regenerate  us.  We  know  the  factors  which  regenerate 
us  in  this  world,  but  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
has  never  said  that  one  who  leaves  this  world  unre- 
generate  cannot  be  regenerated  in  the  world  into 
which  we  enter  upon  leaving  this,  nor  has  it  presumed 
to  say  what  factors  are  used  in  regenerating  one  in  the 
world  to  come.  This  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  Church 
MiKtant.  Its  purpose  and  commission  is  to  regener- 
ate human  beings  in  this  world  by  means  of  Spirit, 
water,  and  blood. 

What  does  the  other  expression,  ordained  by  Christ 
himself  J  mean  ?     Certainly  not  instituted,  for  only  one 


CONFIRMATION   A   SACRAMENT  261 

of  the  Christian  sacraments  was  instituted  by  Christ 
himself  while  He  was  in  the  flesh  —  the  Supper  of  the 
Lord,  and  the  Apostles  did  not  understand  that.  The 
sacrament  of  Baptism  was  commanded  by  our  Lord 
only  after  His  resurrection,  during  the  forty  days,  as 
He  was  upon  the  eve  of  entering  His  transcend- 
ant  life  which  we  call  heaven.  The  sacrament  of 
Christian  Baptism  was  not  instituted  until  the  descent 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  which 
sacrament  the  Apostles  themselves  did  not  understand 
until  their  minds  were  enlightened  by  the  baptism  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  Our  Lord  did  not  institute  the 
sacrament  of  Holy  Baptism;  it  is  an  Apostolic  Insti- 
tution, commanded  by  Christ,  and  begun  by  the 
Apostles  under  the  inspiration  and  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  This  is  all  that  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  can  possibly  mean  when  it  says  that  the  sac- 
rament of  Baptism  is  ordained  by  Christ  himself. 
Precisely  in  this  same  sense  I  believe  that  the  sacra- 
ment of  Confirmation  is  ordained  by  Christ. 

Li  the  face  of  the  facts  it  is  impossible  for  any  man 
to  say  that  it  was  not  ordained  by  Christ.  The  reality 
of  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  was  enacted  on 
the  Cross  on  Calvary  for  the  first  time.  The  supper 
which  Jesus  ate  with  His  disciples  on  the  night  before 
His  crucifixion  at  best  only  anticipated  that  reality 
which  took  place  on  Calvary  and  through  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  reproduced  in  the  life  of  every  one  who  par- 
ticipates in  the  salvation  of  our  crucified  Lord.  What 
I  wish  you  to  see  is  that  if  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  the 
Lord  promised,  had  not  come,  there  would  have  been 
no  sacraments  at  all  in  the  Christian  Church.     It  was 


262  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit  which  made  Christian 
sacraments  possible.  Even  the  sacramentjof  the  Lord^s 
Supper  would  have  perished,  had  He  not  come,  for 
although  they  had  witnessed  the  crucifixion  of  our 
Lord  they  did  not  know  what  it  meant  imtil  their 
minds  were  enlightened  by  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  when  they  for  the  first  time 
saw  the  significance  and  necessity  of  the  death  of  our 
Lord,  and  that  His  sacrifice  must  be  reproduced  in 
our  lives  —  this  is  the  reality,  and  out  of  this  reahty 
grows  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Therefore 
I  unhesitatingly  say  that  only  after  the  coming  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  could  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
be  instituted  in  the  Christian  Church.  Furthermore, 
all  the  sacraments  of  the  Christian  Church  were  in- 
stituted through  the  coming  and  gift  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

The  sacrament  of  Baptism  was  instituted  through 
the  coming  and  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  an  Apostolic 
Institution  commanded  by  Christ,  but  not  instituted 
by  Him.  All  of  us  admit  that  Confirmation  is  an 
Apostolic  Institution  through  the  inspiration  and 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  but  was  it  like  Baptism  com- 
manded by  Christ  ? 

Listen  to  these  words:  "Appearing  unto  them  by 
the  space  of  forty  days,  and  speaking  the  things  con- 
cerning the  kingdom  of  God.''  Who  can  say  that 
Confirmation  was  not  one  of  the  things  commanded 
by  Christ  at  this  time  ?  No  man  can  say  so,  and  have 
his  words  carry  any  weight.  I  do  not  wish,  however, 
to  prove  anything  by  the  argument  of  silence,  —  it  is 
too  dangerous,  —  but  just  for  a  moment  please  grasp 


CONFIRMATION   A   SACRAMENT  263 

the  situation  and  conditions  under  which  our  Lord  was 
acting  at  this  time,  and  the  only  possible  means  of 
making  His  commands  effective  —  through  the  Holy 
Ghost.  '^  Through  the  Holy  Ghost  had  given  com- 
mandment unto  the  Apostles  .  .  .  speaking  of  the 
things  pertaining  unto  the  kingdom  of  God  .  .  .  but 
when  they  believed  Philip  preaching  the  things  con- 
cerning the  Kingdom  of  God  .  .  .  the  Apostles  who 
were  at  Jerusalem  came  down  .  .  .  laid  their  hands 
on  them  that  they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost. 
(Acts  1 : 3-5;  8  :  12-16.)  No  one  can  doubt  that  Jesus 
commanded  Confirmation  through  the  Holy  Ghost, 
that  the  Apostles  obeyed  this  command,  and  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  ratifies  the  gift  of  his  grace.  Let  us  see 
why  Jesus  commanded  it  through  the  Holy  Ghost. 

He  had  instituted  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
but  they  could  not  understand  it,  nor  reproduce  it,  un- 
til the  reality  had  been  enacted,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
had  enhghtened  their  minds  with  the  significance  of 
what  it  meant;  He  had  commanded  the  institution 
of  Baptism,  but  they  could  not  imderstand  it,  nor  obey 
this  command,  until  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
even  then  not  completely  until  the  baptism  of  Cor- 
nelius; how  much  more  then  was  it  impossible  for 
them  to  understand  the  sacrament  of  Confirmation, 
which  our  Lord  commanded  through  the  Holy  Spirit 
before  even  they  had  been  baptized  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  been  confirmed  by  the  Holy  Spirit?  So 
He  says :  *'I  have  many  things  to  tell  you,  but  you  are 
not  able  to  hear  them  now;  but  when  the  spirit  of 
truth  is  come.  He  will  guide  you  into  all  truth,  for  He 
shall  take  of  mine  and  show  it  imto  you.''    I  submit 


264  THE   CHURCH   UNIVERSAL 

that  if  it  was  possible  for  Christ  to  ordain  the  sacra- 
ment of  Confirmation  in  the  Christian  Church,  this 
is  the  only  way  He  could  have  done  it,  —  command 
it  through  the  Holy  Spirit  —  acting  as  He  was  under 
the  limitation  of  the  ignorance  of  the  Apostles.  He 
could  ordain  it  only  through  the  Holy  Spirit  as  He 
illuminated  the  minds  of  the  Apostles.  The  thing  He 
himself  did  many  times  —  laying  on  of  hands  —  but 
they  did  not  imderstand  it  until  the  coming  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  any  more  than  they  did  the  sacrament  of 
Baptism  and  the  sacrament  of  the  Holy  Communion. 
The  three  sacraments  of  the  Christian  Church  are  all 
Apostolic  Institutions,  inspired  by  the  coming  and 
gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  commanded  by  Christ 
through  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and  will  last  as  long  as  the 
Christian  Church  on  earth  does  because  they  meet 
the  needs  and  necessities  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
are  true  to  all  the  facts  of  its  life.  The  essential 
facts  of  the  Christian  life  are  birth,  consecration,  and 
sacrifice.  (i)  Christian  birth  —  the  sacrament  of 
Baptism  shows  how  this  is  done;  (2)  consecration 
to  the  Christian  life  and  the  assistance  we  must  have  to 
keep  us  steadfast  and  firm  in  the  same  —  the  sacrament 
of  Confirmation  shows  us  how  this  is  done;  (3)  the 
necessity  of  feeding  upon  Christ  in  order  to  live  a  life 
of  Christian  sacrifice  —  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  shows  us  how  this  is  done. 


-T^HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  a 
few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects 


By  lewis  O.  BRASTOW 

Professor  of  Practical  Theology  in  Yale  University 

Representative  Modern  Preachers 

Clothy  i2mo,  $1.^0  net;  by  viaily  $/.6i 

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The  Modern  Pulpit  Cloth,  i2mo,  $1,^0  net;  by  mail,  $1.6 j 
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By  NEWELL  DWIGHT  HILLIS 

The  Quest  of  Happiness  cioth,  izmo,  $1.^0  net 

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By  R.  J.  CAMPBELL 

Minister  of  the  City  Temple,  London 

The  New  Theology  cioth,  8vo,  $1.^0  net 

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By  W.  H.  p.  FAUNCE 

President  of  Brown  University 

The  Educational  Ideal  in  the  Ministry 

Cloth,  i2mo,  %i^S  ^^^ 
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By  henry  S.  NASH 

Ethics  and  Revelation  cioth,  i2mo,  $i.so  net 

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PUBLISHED    BY 

THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


By  DR.  LYMAN    ABBOTT 

The  Great  Companion      cioth,  i^mo,  $r.oo  mt 

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A  VaHd  Christianity  for  To-day 

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The  Preacher:    His    Person,    Message, 

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